


starlight

by CitizenDoe



Series: the setting sun [1]
Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Brendol Hux's A+ Parenting, Canon-Typical Violence, Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, M/M, Multi, Spies, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-23
Updated: 2020-12-29
Packaged: 2021-03-07 17:21:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 21
Words: 57,130
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26621323
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CitizenDoe/pseuds/CitizenDoe
Summary: For six months, he would not be Poe Dameron, dashing pilot of the resistance, but Xera Grus, nondescript former pilot turned navigator of the First Order.If Poe were the sort of guy to let himself regret his decisions, he’d regret ever volunteering for this.Poe Dameron volunteers, somewhat hastily, to go undercover in the First Order to gather whatever intel he can to help the Resistance bring down the brutal regime.He expects it to be a cakewalk. He does not expect to catch feelings for the worst person he could possibly catch feelings for.
Relationships: Poe Dameron/Armitage Hux
Series: the setting sun [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2067270
Comments: 80
Kudos: 227





	1. Beginner's Luck

Poe had kind of fallen into the habit of volunteering for things before he had all the information. When he heard perhaps the most dangerous mission…well, its all he had to hear. If he’s showing himself in the best possible light, he could say that by volunteering for a such a role he was keeping someone else out of danger.   
It was true enough that he didn’t feel bad thinking that about himself. If he was being completely honest, he’d always been something on an adrenaline hound.   
When he was kid, his mother would take him up in her craft, and he’d beg her to turn it upside down, perform cheap circus tricks for the thrill of it. He’d jump off cliffs, climb trees, swim in seas. It got a little worse after his mother died, the desire to feel what he’d felt with her again.   
As it turned out, this mission didn’t involve the exciting sort of danger he’d gotten used to in his career as a pilot.   
It involved months of studying.   
“You’ve not been trained in espionage,” several people pointed out to him.   
“How hard can it be,” Poe would say, with the swagger his comrades had come to expect from him.   
So, for six months, he would not be Poe Dameron, dashing pilot of the resistance, but Xera Grus, nondescript former pilot turned navigator of the First Order.   
If Poe were the sort of guy to let himself regret his decisions, he’d regret ever volunteering for this.   
Dangerous his ass.   
Sure, if he got caught, then he’d be a goner, but his training meant months of reading intel files on First Order personnel, documents on etiquette, and more about the needlessly complex navigational systems of the Star Destroyer.   
It wasn’t Poe’s job to worry about getting him in or establishing Grus’s backstory, but there had been a few moments of panic when he’d been handed the standard gear of a First Order soldier.   
“Where did you get this?” He’d asked.   
“Best not to ask,” said Nyaha, a Twi’lek he’d barely interacted with for all the years they’d fought for the same goals, “I think you’re stupid,” was the first thing she’d said to him when she found out he’d taken up a new job as spy extraordinaire.   
“You’re a good pilot,” she’d continued, “And now you’re going to get yourself killed, and you’ll be no use to anyone.”   
The words wailed like ghosts in Poe’s mind during the journey to the Finalizer, but after a few days onboard the vessel turned into a quiet, boring two weeks, they’d faded, like all ghosts do. 

  
And fuck, was it boring.   
Life on a Resistance base wasn’t exactly a paradisal experience but at least he could do what he wanted when he wasn’t on a mission.   
He was surprised his pissing wasn’t scheduled. He had almost no contact with high command, certainly no-one who could give him useful information.   
And he missed BB-8.   
He’d fairly quickly come to like some of the other officers, and more of the enlisted. It apparently wasn’t proper to interact with the troopers, not that he cared about the optics much. Liking them had been the thing he’d dreaded most when it dawned on him what deep cover actually meant. Some of them were snooty assholes, sure, but most of them were just people. He’d maybe killed their sisters, their lovers, their friends.   
Then, maybe they’d killed his.   
Here has was only ranked as a Sergeant, of barely any interest to anybody, and aside from his Captain, whose name he kept forgetting, the highest ranking person he had any significant was Lieutenant Mitaka, who Poe could honestly say wasn’t the worst person he’d ever met, but might be the person for whom the term ‘sycophant’ was invented for.   
Poe kept his mouth shut, his head down and his ears open, as General Organa herself had commanded him to before he left.   
He messed up within two weeks.   
It wasn’t exactly his fault, but when the gravitational-scanner started to fail, he’d bluffed that he could fix whatever the problem with the electronics was, no problem.   
He maybe should have more than skimmed the instruction manuals he’d been given.   
He’d thought he’d found the issue when he forced a wire back into a socket that it mostly seemed to fit into, but when he closed the panel and pushed the buttons in their usual sequence, it made an mournful, bleating sound, like the machine was actually in pain.   
“Excuse me,” a clipped, sharply-accented voice said from behind his left ear. For a moment Poe froze. He knew the voice, the myth of the man it belonged to.   
“Move.” General Hux said impatiently. Poe stepped to the side.   
“I’ve reconnected it, sir,” Poe managed to choke out, “But it’s still not working.”   
Poe wasn’t afraid of Hux, as such, but if there was anyone who wasn’t a force user who would recognise Poe as a spy, it would be Hux.   
Hux shooed Poe further to the side without a glance in his direction, however, re-opening the panel and jabbing at wires with gloved hands.   
In preparation Poe had been made to read dozens and dozens of manuals, on all manner of things pertaining to the First Order, but he’d never had much of a brain for memorising the written word. If he did something practically, it usually stuck in his head and he’d never forget it, but after a few pages of dense text, his eyes glazed over.   
He watched the General work, a little surprised as he’d gotten the idea that Hux wasn’t the sort to get his hands dirty (and, to be fair to Poe’s own assumptions, he was technically getting his gloves dirty).   
He was almost handsome in profile, Poe found himself thinking. Young. The same age as him, maybe only just thirty.   
Hux pulled out a wire entirely and handed it to Poe - it’s edges were fraying. Of course it wouldn’t work. Poe could kick himself.   
“Replace it,” Hux said, stalking off, a couple of bootlickers at his heels as he returned to the bridge.   
Poe held onto the wire dumbly, wondering how he was supposed to replace it, when the woman who was his direct senior approached him.   
“I’ll do this, Newbie,” she said, with a semi-friendly smile, “If you go and fetch me some caff.”   
“Thanks,” Poe muttered, “Is he gonna…send me for punishment for messing that up?”   
She shook her head.   
“It’s doubtful that he even knows your name,” she said, “Get yourself something nice, too.”   
She sent him away with a pat on the shoulder, and he rushed off like a good little First Order stooge, all brain-washed and compliant.

  
* * *

It wasn’t exactly his mission to get close to Hux of all people. That seemed an overly ambitious plan, back at base. Just someone who was high enough in the hierarchy to let slip a few secrets, or, potentially, to find some other way of procuring information.   
Hux himself was Poe’s own plan, a new one that formed fresh in his head after Hux had fixed the navi-system.   
He didn’t think it would be easier, but that was the point. At this point, monotony was going to kill him well before getting discovered was.  
Poe had the plan, but no plan on how to enact the plan.   
Until he just walked right into one.   
He went into the officer’s refresher. Hux stood in the far corner. His gloves were by the sink. In one bare hand he held a cig about a centimetre away from his other hand, lit side facing towards the palm.   
“What’re you doing?” Poe said, before he could stop himself, Hux looked up, glassy eyed for a moment before he blinked his surprise away, and brought the cigarette back up to his lips.   
“I don’t see how that is any of your business,” Hux said, “I’m sorry, I don’t recognise you.”   
“Flight Sergeant Xera Grus,” Poe said, “Just transferred. Can I have one of those? Sir.”   
“I wasn’t aware of any transfers,” Hux said, eyebrows raised, he reached into his inside pocket and handed over a slim silver box.   
Poe opened it, took out a cigarette and lit it quickly, all too aware of Hux’s eyes fixed on him. They reminded him of the sea a cold climate, grey-green and stormy.   
“Thank you, General Hux,” Poe said, handing the tin back over to him.   
“Hm,” Hux said, “You’re quite welcome.”  
Poe relaxed against the wall opposite of Hux. Hux flickered the cigarette into a sink and then washed it down. He put his gloves back on, and smiled at Poe in a self-satisfactory way before reaching above of them, clicking at a small white box on the ceiling, which immediately gave out an ear-splitting screech - a smoke detector.   
“I’d put that out if I were you, Grus,” said Hux, pointing at the cig, “Before a superior officer comes along and punishes you for gross disobedience.”   
And with that he left the room with a swish of his coat.   
Poe didn’t have much time to panic before the door swung back open, Mitaka rushing in looking green and annoyed. Mitaka knocked the cig from his hand.   
“What are you doing? The General was just outside, if he caught you - ”   
“I - ” Poe started, and then shook his head in defeat, “I didn’t know that was on.”   
“Of course it is,” Mitaka said, stamping on the cigarette. With the smoke dispersed, the alarm stopped, “Clean it up and come back to bridge, quickly.”   
  


***  
  


He wasn’t stalking Hux. They had just happened to be in the same places at the same time most of the time.   
Of course, their shift pattern was fairly synchronous, especially as Hux frequently worked longer than he was scheduled to (Poe, for his part, was not going to lose sleep to serve the First Order, even if it did mean gathering intel for the greater good).   
And when Hux left the bridge, so did he.   
Contrary to popular belief, Poe hadn’t made it much of a habit to follow people into refreshers, but this time, he made an exception.   
“Are you gonna share?” Poe said.   
Hux didn’t seem startled to have been so closely tailed.   
“Are you going to ask nicely?”   
Poe gave Hux his award-winning grin (officially. OK, it was a contest between friends, but it still meant something).   
“Please?” He said.   
“There is something odd about you,” Hux said, lighting up a cigarette before handing it over to Poe, who considered it for a second.   
“You’re not going to plug the alarm back in, are you?”   
“No,” Hux said, “Why did you say you were transferred?”   
Poe accepted the cigarette and concentrated hard on the profile he was supposed to memorise.   
“Why does anyone transfer,” Poe said, trying for a nonchalant shrug.   
Hux lit his own cigarette.   
“You were a pilot,” said Hux, “And you’ve transferred into navigation. Why?”   
“Injury,” said Poe, “Isn’t this all this in my file?”   
“It doesn’t make for engaging reading,” Hux said, “And they tend to report only the most basic of facts. I was wondering you’d pis - upset your old commander in some way.”   
“Why would you think that? Is being transferred under you supposed to be a punishment?” Poe said.   
He’d been gunning for more of a reaction, but Hux just inhaled on his cigarette contemplatively.   
“If you couldn’t fly anymore, I’d assume you’d transfer to mechanical engineering or the like,” said Hux.   
Poe smiled tightly, Hux was watching him very carefully.   
“I considered it,” Poe said, “It made feel like I was constantly missing out. I needed to get away from all that.”   
“Understandable,” Hux said, with a softness that surprised Poe.   
It made Poe feel oddly bad that it was all a lie.   
“Don’t you have your own ‘fresher?” Poe said, “Why smoke in here?”   
“It’s against the rules,” said Hux.   
“It’s against the rules here, too,” Poe said.   
“I am the only one with access to my refresher,” Hux said, “Obviously. Here it could be anyone doing the smoking. You, for example.”   
Hux pointed at him with the cigarette as he spoke.   
“What if someone were to catch you and rat you out?”   
“Whoever would believe that I’d break my own rules in such a flagrant manner?”   
“Right,” Poe said, “Fair enough, man - sir.”   
“It’s been a while since you’ve been in the company of high-ranking officers, hasn’t it?” Hux said. He finished with the cigarette, washing it away in the same manner he had done the previous cycle.   
“What gave me away?” Poe said, trying not to grin too much.   
“You are very disrespectful,” Hux said, “Are you finished with that?”   
Poe threw his cig down the drain after Hux’s.   
“If I’m so disrespectful, General, why haven’t I been sent for reconditioning?”   
Hux replaced his gloves and reconnected the alarm once more.   
“Perhaps I’m too interested in figuring out what’s wrong with you,” said Hux, “Reconditioning would only ruin the intrigue.”   
“General?”   
“Yes?”   
“Why don’t you change the rules,” Poe said, “If you’re not going to bother following them?”   
“It’s a filthy habit. It smells awful, it’s bad for the health. One really shouldn’t indulge, however,” Hux paused, “I do enjoy it.” 


	2. Hot

When he was a child, the time he spent between leaving Arkanis and receiving a real education had seemed to last forever. In actuality it was probably three or four standard years, though they had moved around too much to count to any exacting passage of time, and his own birth had never been celebrated, so he had little more than a vague concept of his own age. 

Some of it had been spent planetside, others in various vessels, where he had no proper place. He could avoid his father fairly easily. On ships his father had made it clear that he was not to enter his quarters under any circumstances without express permission, not even to sleep. 

His father rarely invited him. 

He’d spent much of his life, then, sleeping in rooms where some officers had taken pity on him, curled up in closets, corners in noisy engine rooms or under the tables in conference halls. 

For many years, he’d had the ability to sleep anywhere. His natural alarm was near perfect. He’d fall asleep nearly instantly, and wake up exactly five hours later. It hadn’t mattered much if someone was snoring in his year, screaming in the distance, or if the clunk of heavy machinery hammered in his ears: he slept well. 

Planetside he’d only sometimes had his own bed, depending on where they were staying and how generous his father allowed their hosts to be. Sloane had never made him sleep on the floor. The bed she’d given him was almost too comfortable. 

Lately he hadn’t been able to sleep at all. 

Tonight, his head was cycling with thoughts of meeting with the Supreme Leader, and somewhat more pleasantly, Grus.

The Supreme Leader had been disappointed with Hux, with how the project was going, with the way progress had stalled, with all the problems he didn’t know how to solve. 

Snoke had somewhat rightfully suspected him of lying, had wormed his way into Hux’s brain and only gotten angrier that not only did Hux not know how to fix the particular problem, that he didn’t even know _why_ there had been a problem. 

It was not the first time Hux had left a meeting with more than just a bruised ego, followed out by a smug Kylo Ren. 

His back hurt, his head hurt: between Snoke and Ren he felt like he had a parasite in his brain. 

When he’d gotten back to his own quarters he’d showered and lain in bed for about fifteen minutes, his mind had raced too much, and so he’d gotten back up and dressed and sat at his desk, pouring over blueprints until his eyes blurred. 

And then there was Grus.  
It was near undeniable that there was something unusual about Grus, but Armitage had checked the records several times and they all confirmed the same thing: that Xera Grus was a competent soldier and exemplary pilot, who after an attack that left many of his people dead and himself injured, decided to retire to relative safety of the bridge. He did not stand out in any other way. He came from a politically irrelevant family, had no stains or particular triumphs on his record, no disciplinary action, which Armitage found hard to believe. 

Commanding Officers who took likings to their underlings would often leave out information they deemed unnecessary, however.

His eyes blurred more and his head ached, he considered that he needed new vision lenses, which would have to wait. 

There was not long before his next shift, and so he washed down a small cocktail of painkillers and stims with tea that had gone cold, unpleasant tasting but tea was an expensive luxury that he wasn’t about to waste. 

Hux went into the refresher to fix his hair, a task that took a frustrating amount of time when he let it dry naturally ( _Grus’s_ hair was certainly not up to code, he found himself thinking). 

He washed pomade residue from his hands and inspected them. The skin on his palms was rough and badly scarred, a result of one of his many shameful habits. 

He knew of one or two of the cadets who used knives, cut their arms, doesn’t know exactly, why or when he started or why he chose his palms, but they were usually covered by gloves and the only person who had found out had been his father, who had rolled his eyes and said, _pathetic_ , which had only made him want to hurt more. 

He’d not done it for years, though he thought about it every time he had a cigarette. 

He covered his palms with his gloves, dusted off his coat and then went to the bridge, picking up a caff along the way (it wasn’t his favourite drink, but it did an admirable job of supplementing the stims). 

Nobody seemed to be slacking when he arrived early, but the crew looked shocked and harried to see him. 

“Sir,” Kaplan greeted him, “Alpha shift doesn’t start - ”

“I _know_ when my shift starts,” Armitage said, more shortly than he’d actually been intending to, and Kaplan paled. 

“General Hux, I didn’t intend - ”

Armitage held up a hand to stop him from carrying on in the tiresomely deferential manner. 

“You may leave,” Hux said. 

“Excuse - sir,”

“I am taking over now,” Armitage said, “You can leave now. Go to bed. Or. Do whatever it is that you do.” 

“Of course, sir,” said Kaplan. 

He wasn’t going to say anything else, Hux knew, at least not to his face. 

Kaplan rushed away from the bridge, Hux walked about where he had been working. 

There were only a few enlisted and less officers milling about, trying to look busy. 

It was a useless show of alacrity: Hux knew as well as any that there was little to be done at this hour, aside from the expected standard of alertness. 

There had been no battles, no raids, no resistance attacks on their bases in quite some time. 

But it could happen at any moment, a key stratagem of resistance terrorists was surprise. Armitage knew that the relative quietness had relaxed many officers and enlisted alike, that there should be reduced working hours with smaller shifts. His insistence on keeping the shifts as they were supposed to be did not exactly make him popular. But he worked doubles, sometimes triples, so he did not think any of them had much place to complain. 

He lurked over some shoulders, attempted to show a passing and polite interest in what everyone was doing, before settling himself down with the caff and his own Datapad. 

***

Grus approached him near the end of the shift with a smile and a swagger. Mitaka was shaking his head in Grus’s direction, meaning Hux assumes, _he’s in a real shitty mood._

It was true enough. 

He’d been short with everyone, all day, taking his own ineptitude out on anyone who had dared approach him. 

“General Hux,” Grus said, with a false little half-salute, “I have something _personal_ I need to discuss with you.” 

“Surely you can see Captain Lyra about whatever it is,” Armitage said, more for Mitaka’s benefit than his own. 

“You see, sir, I would, but I forget her name and I thought that would be really embarrassing for all of us,” Grus said. 

Mitaka made a squeaky, strangled sound behind him. Hux bit the inside of his cheeks. 

“Very well, if you insist,” Armitage said, “Mitaka, would you go and get me some caff?” 

Mitaka did not object, instead rushed off to do as he had asked. 

“What is it?” Hux said. 

Grus slipped his hand in his pockets, leaning precariously on some railings. 

“I wanted to know when your break is,” Grus said, “You’ve been up here all shift.” 

“Take your hands out of your pockets,” Hux said, “And that’s really none of your concern. It’s certainly not wasting my time over.” 

“You really look like you could use a cig,” Grus said, stepping towards him and sliding his hands out of his pockets, “Or a sedative.” 

Grus put his hand in Hux’s own pocket, dropping something inside of it. 

Mitaka approached them, obviously having hurried back. Did he think Grus was going to throw him over the railings? 

“If the problem persists, sergeant, I suggest seeing a medic,” Hux said, raising his voice, “I’m sure they’ll be very discreet. No need for embarrassment.” 

Mitaka frowned and handed over the caff. 

“I’ll go do that now, then, General, if you don’t have any objections,” Grus said, still casual. 

Tricky little shit, Hux thought, burning his tongue on the caff. 

“By all means,” Hux said, “You are fairly expendable.” 

Grus sauntered off, hands clasped behind his back, twitching to make their way back into his pockets. 

“Sir,” Mitaka said, “Is…Sergeant Grus ill?” 

“Not desperately. It’s a rather quaint custom from his planet to not such certain kinds of illnesses with females,” said Hux. 

Hux put his hand in his pocket, feeling several loose cigs. He drained his caff in a couple of throat-scalding gulps. 

“I’m taking a break,” Hux said, “Unless there is something you feel you need me for, Lieutenant.” 

“Yes sir,” said Mitaka, “I mean, no, sir. There’s nothing I need you for. Rather, not right now.” 

Hux nodded vaguely and began to walk off before Mitaka was done with his rambling.

Grus was waiting for him in the refresher. Sitting on the sinks, legs swinging. 

“I disengaged the thingy,” He said, pointing and jumping off. 

“Is that the technical term?” 

“Yes, actually,” Grus said, “You got the meaning of my gift then.”

“It was hardly a riddle,” said Hux, “Where did you get them from?” 

He took the cig out of his pocket as Grus leaned against the wall. He was forever leaning. It was a terrible, untrained way to stand. 

“I don’t think I should share that information with you, General,” Grus said, “You know, I never thought you’d be such a _tease_.”

“Excuse me,” Hux said, lighting Grus’s cig and then his own. Why he’d gotten cigs but not thought to get his own lighter was beyond Hux. 

Perhaps that why he was desperate to get Armitage to go on his break, he’d been unable to procure one. 

“I mean, the stuff about going to a _medic._ Not being embarrassed.” 

“I really don’t understand what you’re talking about,” said Hux, “I simply said what came to my mind.” 

“You’re joking?” Grus said, laughing. 

“Don’t laugh at me,” Armitage said. 

“I’m not laughing at you,” Grus said, “I thought - well, never mind. The way you said it Mitaka probably thinks I’ve got some kind of venereal disease.” 

“Oh,” said Hux, “Does him thinking that concern you?” 

“No,” Grus said, “You didn’t mean to say it like that?” 

“I _said,_ no. I’m not a mind-reader, how can I help what other people think?” Hux said. 

“Why do you look so sore today?” Grus said. 

“I’m not,” Hux said. 

“Everyone’s being saying so,” Grus said, puffing casually, “I think you nearly made Thanisson cry, earlier. And if you don’t mind me saying so, you don’t look great.” 

“I do mind you saying so,” Hux said, “Especially as you look as though you slept in that uniform.” 

Grus pouts, turning his head to one side and making his large brown eyes look larger. They’re the deep, dark sort of brown that makes own feel easily lost, soft and disarming at the same time. 

“I had a meeting that did not go well,” Hux said, “And I haven’t slept much lately.” 

“So you really could do with that sedative, huh?” 

“I hate the things,” Armitage said, “I can never think properly with them.” 

“I suppose it’s sort of the point, right?” Grus said, “Someone told me meditating helps with sleep.” 

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Armitage said, “If it were as simple as that I wouldn’t have any problems at all.” 

Grus held up his hands in mock surrender. 

“What was this doomed meeting about, then?” 

Armitage bit his lip, had caught himself doing so too often lately, and felt his face flush. 

“A weapon for the Supreme Leader,” Armitage said, “It’s rather need-to-know, as of late, there have been some issues. It’s not as near as finished as I hoped. As He hoped.” 

“Ah,” Grus said, “Never had you one to miss deadlines.” 

“I haven’t missed it yet,” Armitage said. 

He catches sigh of himself in the mirror. He does look bad - tired, a little dehydrated, caff never helped with that. He was always forgetting to drink water, however often a medic had advised him to try. He had a bruise on his face, that no-one had pointed out to him. 

Mitaka would have noticed. 

It would be easy to deduce where it came from. 

“Supreme Leader take it that badly,” Grus said, quietly, pityingly. 

Armitage threw his cig down the drain.

“It doesn’t concern you, Sergeant,” Hux said, “Please report back to the bridge as soon as possible. You have a shift that needs completing.” 


	3. Loose

Poe doesn’t see Hux for three cycles, and when he reappears he looks even more unapproachable than usual, and Poe almost regrets his decision to focus on getting information from Hux himself. 

A couple of times he slips away from whatever it is he’s doing and waits for five minutes in the refresher, smoking the cheap cigs he’d gotten, always leaving feeling like he’d been stood up on a date, which was _maybe_ the most stupid way he could feel. 

It was the information he wanted. He’d asked about, no-one knew where Hux was and plenty found it suspicious, if it was a meeting then _someone_ would know, and Hux had never missed a shift without an explanation, let alone three. 

So there had to be something important, and the only person who could know was Hux. 

He had to speak to Hux, get him to tell him something. Flirt a little, if he really had to. He didn’t want to. He’d just made plans and he was sticking to them. 

Hux had walked past him once, talking with Captain Lyra, not looking at Poe at all (not looking at _Grus,_ Poe told himself, to soothe his ego). 

After agreeing to work an extended shift, Poe was making his way back to his room, bleary-eyed, with the distinctive feel of a hangover without any of the fun of having gotten drunk, he slipped into the refresher. 

He was a little surprised to find Hux, who didn’t even look up to acknowledge him. Poe stalked passed him into a cubicle, refused to make eye-contact with him until after he’d sanitised his hands. 

“Started to think you’d quit,” Poe said, nodding at the cig in between Hux’s long, slender fingers. 

Poe put his hands in his own pockets to fish out the battered packet and turned them out, empty. Hux’s was watching him, eyebrows raised, and reached into the inner pocket of his coat and threw not his usual slim, silver case but an ordinary packet. 

“These are _mine,_ ” Poe said, indignantly. 

It came out as more of a whine than he wanted. 

“Yes,” said Hux, “I stole them from you.” 

He was straight-lipped and pale, expressionless. 

“They were in my pocket,” Poe said, trying valiantly to keep his voice steady. 

“I’m quite an adept pickpocket.” 

Poe laughed, taking one of his own cigarettes and returning the packet to safety.

“Why do you know how to pickpocket?” 

“I was very bored. My father wanted me to stay out of the way but there was nothing much for six year old to do on a ship. Mostly I gave back what I stole.” 

“Mostly?” Poe said, “I never would put you as the stealing type.” 

“The old Imperial lot were the best. They were always so ostentatious. Once I took a bracelet from a man’s wrist and returned it to the other without anyone noticing I was even in the room. It was quite good fun.”

Poe didn’t particularly know what do with the information. Hux’s voice had changed, less severe than usual, not quite as aristocratic. 

“Do you still do it?” Poe asked, closing the gap between them slightly. 

“ _Of course not,_ ” Hux said, snappish once again, “Who would I even steal from?”

“Me, clearly,” said Poe. 

Hux’s eyes narrowed, and his lips twisted into the sort of smirk Poe hated himself for finding attractive. 

“Everyone else follows the rules regarding pockets,” said Hux. 

“What’s the point of having pockets if we can’t use them? Can’t put my cigs in ‘em, can’t put my hands in ‘em,” Poe said. 

“ _I_ didn’t design the uniform,” Hux said, “And I’ll have all your pockets sewn shut if you carry on like this.” 

“You keep yours in your pocket,” said Poe, “That’s unfair.” 

“Breast pocket is different,” said Hux, “It doesn’t effect the cut of the uniform.” 

Hux sanitised his hands before putting his gloves back on. 

“I was starting to get lonely, smoking alone,” said Poe, “I mean, I’m less likely to get caught when I’m with you.” 

“How self-serving of you,” Hux said, but the corners of his lips twitched, “I’ve been busy.” 

“All the more reason to smoke, sir,” said Poe. 

“I’ll keep it mind,” said Hux, “You look tired.” 

“Someone was sick,” Poe said, “I covered their shift.” 

“Well then, you should go to bed,” said Hux, “Oversleeping is not an excuse to miss your own shift.” 

“Thanks for your concern, General,” said Poe. 

“After you,” said Hux, gesturing towards the door.

“Are you going to steal from me when my back is turned?” Poe said, walking in front of him anyway. 

“Certainly not,” Hux said, “It’s inadvisable to target the same person too many times.” 

*

Poe almost settles. He’s lonely as all hell, when it comes down to it. Being a spy in the First Order is a little like being sober at a party where everyone else totally wasted. 

Things sometimes almost seemed normal. It wasn’t like the Resistance, full of people he’d die for, but sometimes he’d forget the massive differences they had in their thinking, find himself smiling, laughing. 

Then someone would say something, and Poe would realise that if they new the truth about him, if something slipped out, if he told them what he really thought, that they’d shoot him before he had the chance to explain himself. 

Not that he really expected anyone to let him explain himself - that sort of thing was asking for a bit much. 

He thinks, uneasily, about what would these people would be like without the years of brain-washing? Would they still choose this, the relative security, even with all the bad stuff? 

Or would they have joined the resistance, a hard life, but, Poe _knows,_ the right one. 

Besides, he hates his job on this ship.

Sometimes he thinks about opening an airlock and throwing himself out, just for something to do. 

Before, smoking was a bad habit, but something that he’d only do occasionally, after a long haul flight, a tough mission, after sex, occasionally.

He never looked forward to it, not in the way he did now. 

He going to get cough, if he doesn’t cut back. 

It’s a necessary evil, smoking is the only time Hux decides to act like an actual person. 

He starts to worry about having to report back to base. 

They’d agreed on a rendezvous point, where Poe would take his shore-leave that he had accrued at his last posting, and Poe would deliver any information he had and the decision of whether or not it’s worth returning. 

He didn’t have enough information, yet, to truly warrant the danger he could be putting others in. What if somebody took leave at the same time, to the same back-ass planet as him? 

All he had to offer was that a weapon was being built, no, he didn’t know what it was supposed to do, but everyone involved in it was weirdly on-edge, even for the First Order, and it was stressing Hux out and that the Supreme Leader was getting antsy. 

What good would that do to the Resistance? 

Oh, the First Order are building a big weapon, _great_ spy work, Dameron, we’re really glad we wasted our immaculately designed fake identity on _you._

*

When he goes into the ‘fresher, he knows something is up. Hux isn’t smoking, hasn’t even disabled the alarm. He’s just stood there, hands behind his back, staring straight ahead, every bit the General that Poe hates. 

Poe closes the door slowly, locks it as subtly as he can manage, so that Hux won’t notice. 

He can’t know the truth. Poe would’ve been dragged away by troopers, and this conversation would be happening in some kind of torture cell. 

Hux wouldn’t be stupid enough to think he could win in a one-to-one fight. 

“What is it?” Poe says, when Hux doesn’t say anything, “Sir.” 

“Someone has reported you,” Hux said. 

He had started to say something else but Poe can’t keep himself from interrupting. 

“ _Who?_!” 

“Don’t shout at me,” Hux snarled, “And I’m obviously not going to tell you who. You were reported for what this individual views as counter-First-Order opinions.” 

Poe realises who it was, and starts to seethe. 

A fish-eyed, doughy-skinned, scrawny creature with a madly vicious little glint in his eye. It’s no question that he _chose_ to be there. If the First Order didn’t exist, he’d probably kill, just for fun. 

“Habea?” 

Hux doesn’t quite nod. 

“What did you do?” 

Poe hesitates. 

“Nothings springs to mind, sir,” Poe said, putting his hands in his pockets and taking them out again when he realised that it wasn’t going to help his situation. 

He knew exactly what had happened. A quiet discussion between him a Cuth, a quiet, enlisted man who was probably the most easy-going person on the _Finaliser._

They’d been discussing non-human roles in the Order. 

Poe had been trying, as gently as he knew how, to convince Cuth that murder shouldn’t be the only option. 

“I don’t like it,” Cuth had said, quietly, nervously, “But it’s necessary.” 

“It doesn’t have to be,” Poe had argued. 

They hadn’t been talking quietly enough, because Habea materialised behind Poe, and hissed in his ear. 

“Of course it’s necessary!”

Poe flinched away from the sudden spray of spit that barrelled past him. 

Not content with just that, Habea nudged Poe out of the way. 

“And you should be ashamed of yourself, Cuth,” Habea said, “You should take pride in what we do. We’re making a purer future.”

“For _who_?” Poe said. 

He’d not been planning to argue. He’d wanted, if he could, do have quiet conversations with people like Cuth, to comfort their doubts, to help them see they were right to have questions. 

“For us,” Habea said, “For humanity. There are more _hybrids_ than there ever have been before. They’re defective, stains on our race.” 

Poe shook his head. 

He was about ready to punch Habea’s _pure_ face.

“What does it matter? It’s not like it’s compulsory to fuck non-humans,” Poe said, “And even if it were, killing pe- killing them is not the answer.” 

Habea snorted, lips downwards, usually pale faced tinged oddly with purple. 

“Sounds like Republic talk, to me,” 

Cuth made a strangled sort of sound. 

“Habea,” Cuth said, “You can’t just accuse him of that.”

“I’m not accusing him of anything,” said Habea. 

Poe had thought that it was the end of it. A weak, vague threat and warning to keep his mouth closed. 

He’d forgotten, apparently, that Habea was a sadist. What would happen if they sent him to reconditioning? Surely that would just be conditioning? Would he know what he was doing, after? Would he betray the Resistance? 

“What’re - ” Poe started, but Hux held a hand out to shut him up. 

“He reported to Captain Lyra, who reported to me. With her own belief that though you are times and, her words, _a clueless dolt,_ she doesn’t believe that you acting against the interests of the Order,” said Hux, “And I feel similarly. So I have chosen not to investigate this matter further.” 

Hux takes out his silver case, disarming the fire system with one-hand and he talks. 

“Right,” said Poe, taken aback, “Okay. Thank you, sir.” 

Hux takes a step forward. 

“Don’t let me find out I’m wrong, Grus. It’ll reflect very badly on me if _Habea_ of all fucking people is proven to be an accurate judge of people, understand?” 

“Perfectly, General Hux.” Poe says. 

Hux holds out a cig to him, which Poe excepts, trying not to let the strain of maintaining his composure show in his hands or on his face. 

He puts the cig in his mouth and Hux lights it for him, pale eyes making an almost intimidating sort of contact. 

There’s a slight urge to lean forward and kiss him. He’s got nice lips, even if they look a little dry. 

Mercifully, Hux moves away before he can act on his urges. 

Hux lights his own cigarette, returns to his usual spot up against the wall. He’s still watching Poe, in the way that makes Poe want to tell him to stop. 

Poe forces himself into a corny grin, jumps up to sit on the basin, an act that receives a glare but no comment from Hux. 

“So,” said Poe, “How’s your day been?” 

“Are you really asking me that?” 

“Well, every time I try to ask you anything even remotely personal you storm off out of here,” Poe said, “So I thought I’d start with the basics.” 

“I don’t storm anywhere,” said Hux, “Ask me something better, then, and I’ll answer it.” 

_What’s that secretive weapon you are building?_

No, a bit too obvious, considering the conversation they had only just finished having. 

“When was your first time on a ship like this?” Poe said, “I mean, an Order one or one the old Imperial ones.” 

“I was about five or six,” said Hux, “It’s very boring for a child.” 

“I can imagine. What did you do?” 

“No, it’s my turn to ask questions.” 

“I didn’t agree to those terms,” said Poe, “And I’m happy to answer how my day was. You’re the one with the problem with small talk, not me.” 

Hux took long, silent drags on the cigarette, and the quiet bothered Poe quickly. 

“Fine, ask anything,” he said. 

“Are you attracted to men?” Hux said. 

Poe choked on his own cig smoke. 

“What?” 

“Oh grow up, Grus, it’s a simple question,” Hux said, snippily. 

“Fine, yeah, sometimes,” Poe said, “Didn’t think we were being _that_ personal.” 

He jumped down off the sink. Hux was doing this on purpose, he realised, to mess with him.

Poe had always prided himself on being pretty much unflappable. 

He’d have to adjust the balance. 

“Is it my turn now?” 

“I suppose so,” Hux said. 

“Have you ever had sex with a non-human?” 

It worked, because Hux turned red, looked briefly angry and then disgusted. 

“It’s a simple question, Hux,” Poe said. 

Hux glared. 

“No, I haven’t,” said Hux, regarding Poe with renewed suspicion, “ _Have you?_ ” 

“You can’t ask me the same question that I asked you,” said Poe, feeling Hux that would not be impressed by the truth and not in the mood to lie about something so insignificant. 

“Those aren’t the rules,” said Hux. 

“They are now,” said Poe, “You made one up, I make one up. Fair is fair.” 

Hux disposes of the cigarette, steps past Poe. 

Poe thinks, briefly, that he’s taken another two steps back. 

Hux turns and looks at him after unlocking the door. 

“Are you attracted to me?” 

There’s nothing, thankfully, for Poe to choke on this time, but he’s taken aback. 

“Yes,” Poe said, “Sometimes.” 

Hux smiled. 

“Good to know.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for the kudos I received last chapter! I really appreciate it (also, if there are any tags/warnings you think need to be added, feel free to let me know)


	4. Blocker

Poe follows Hux out of the refresher and down the long, empty hallways. Everyone who is still awake is busy at work.   
He’s not even sure if Hux wants him to follow.   
He comes to a halt suddenly, Poe nearly bumps into him.   
Hux turns and looks at him. Eyes greener than grey, warmer. The door in front of them slides open.   
Hux’s rooms are bigger than his, but smaller than he expected.   
They room they enter is rectangular, there’s a large, L-shaped desk in one corner. In the other there is a small set of cabinets, like a half-finished kitchen, and on the other wall there are two doors.   
Behind them, the the door they came through slides closed, and exactly where he is dawns on Poe.   
He knows what a lot of people think of him, and he doesn’t blame. He’s a good-looking guy, he could sleep around if he wanted to. But he’s always been more interested in romance than fucking. He likes the process.   
Poe doesn’t think Hux has picnics and dancing and candles and poems in mind (and he wants to punch himself for even thinking that about Hux.)  
“Do you want some tea?” Hux said.   
Blurts it, more like.   
Poe blinks at him.   
“I’d offer you caff but I don’t have any,” said Hux, “I think wine might be more appropriate but I don’t drink.”   
“I’ll take tea,” Poe said, “Thanks. You don’t drink at all?”   
“No,” said Hux, “Does that surprise you?”   
“Kinda,” Poe said, “I guess I imagined you coming back here after spending a shift yelling at incompetent cretins and having a whisky. Or a brandy. In one of those stupid tiny glasses.”   
Hux frowns at him, then laughs.   
It’s the first time Poe’s seen him more than smirk or half-laugh, half-snort in a practiced, polite sort of way. He shows his teeth, they’re very white but a little crooked, and a canine is badly chipped.   
Poe wants to ask what happened to it, but the words never make it to his mouth.   
Then Hux turns his back on him silently makes tea at the cabinets, from one of which he had produced a small electric kettle.   
“Do you imagine me a lot?” Hux said.   
“Not as often as I’m sure you’d like to think, Hux,” Poe said.   
Hux turns to face him, holding a bag of tea in one hand.   
“I think about you,” said Hux, “Mostly what exactly is wrong with you.”   
Poe forces himself to stay relaxed. Hux turns back to pour the tea, and then approaches him, a cup in either hand.   
Poe takes one from him.   
They’re standing very close, very quiet.   
“A snifter.”   
“What?”   
“That’s what those stupid tiny glasses are called,” Hux said, “Snifters.”   
“Ah,” said Poe, “A stupid name for a stupid cup. So do you drink brandy?”   
“No, I just said, I don’t drink.”   
“Not at all? Not even wine?” Poe said, “Not even with dinner?”   
“No,” said Hux, “Well, maybe once or twice, when I was young. Or while toasting. I’ve never much cared for the taste.”   
“And you think there’s something wrong with me,” Poe said, only half-joking. He sips at the tea, chokes, “This is…”   
Hux smiles.   
“You don’t like it?”   
“It’s bitter,” Poe said, “More bitter than I expected.”   
“A lot of people find it too bitter,” Hux said, “You don’t have to drink it all.”   
“I want to,” Poe said, “You like it?”  
“Yes,” Hux said, “Demonstrably.”   
“Right,” Poe said, “Bitter tea, no alcohol. Caff?”   
Hux shook his head.   
“It’s drinkable,” Hux said, “But I don’t much like it.”   
“Hot chocolate?”   
“I’ve never tried it,” said Hux, “I really prefer water or tea.”   
Poe drinks the tea, wishes it were something sweeter.   
“My mom used to make it for me all the time,” Poe said, “Hot chocolate. Usually after a long day, just before bed.”  
Poe wanders away from Hux, starts to investigate the desk. He noticed, for the first time, a small, pretty plant in the corner.   
“What kind of plant is that,” Poe said.  
He reached out his hand to touch the shiny, smooth and impossibly soft-looking leaves that surrounded the purple flower in the centre.   
Hux grabbed Poe’s hand and knocked it out the way.   
“Sorry, I - “”“It’ll bite you and then shoot acid at you if you touch it. It won’t kill you but if gets in your eye you won’t be able to see for a couple of days.”   
“Oh,” said Poe, “It just looked so…smooth.”   
“To attract pray. Generally speaking, insects,” said Hux, “And you.”   
“So you never touch it?”   
“I do,” said Hux, “It knows my scent. It knows I feed it.”   
“Right,” said Poe, “What’s his name?”   
Hux rose an eyebrow.   
“It’s a plant,” said Hux, “And besides, he would be a female. Males don’t spit acid, only the females and hybrids.”  
“Why?”   
Hux shrugged.   
“The reproducing plants have more incentive to be protective. Male seed is cheap. There are more males than females and hybrids put together.”  
“What are the hybrids?”   
“The can reproduce by themselves,” said Hux, “Did you come here to talk about plants?”   
“No, I just didn’t think you’d be a gardener,” said Poe.  
“When I was young and I lived on Arkanis I spent a lot of time with my father’s gardeners,” Hux said, “Probably I was nuisance but they let me think I was helping.”   
“Is the plant from Arkanis?”   
“No, but we had one in a dry-house,” Hux said, “My father’s wife liked exotic, expensive things. She sent this one to me. Perhaps she was trying to blind me, now that I think about it.”   
Poe laughed, realised Hux wasn’t joking a little too late.   
He caught Hux’s gloved hand, held it in his own.   
“I think you should name the plant P - ” He pauses, “Peter.”   
“I told you, it is female.”   
“It’s a plant, Hux, it doesn’t care,” Poe said.   
Hux wasn’t that much taller than him, not really. If he’d only crane his neck down a little it’d be easy to kiss him, and Poe wouldn’t have to stretch.   
He pushes himself up a little, lips just an inch away from Hux’s, loses balance when Hux pulls back.   
“You should go,” Hux said.   
“What?”   
“I shouldn’t have let you come in here,” Hux said, “It’s wrong.”  
“I don’t - ”  
Poe wants to follow Hux as he paces about, rubbing his hands over the lips Poe didn’t get a chance to kiss.   
“I’m your superior officer. I always promised myself that I wouldn’t - ”  
“It’s fine, Hux,” Poe said, “I don’t think you’re abusing your power or anything. You didn’t even invite me. I followed you.”   
Hux frowned at him.   
“I led you on,” Hux said, “I don’t have to say anything explicitly.”   
There’s a flicker of something in Poe that makes him want to say to Hux I couldn’t care less about the First Order or its hierarchy.   
“I’m not exactly known for being blindly obedient, am I?” Poe said, “You can’t get me to keep my hands out of my pockets, let alone trick me into an affair.”   
“Well, you’re right about that…” said Hux. He stops pacing.   
Poe closes in the gap between them, reaches out to finally kiss him but Hux steps cleanly away, again.   
“No,” Hux said, “No kissing.”   
This time Poe was more than surprised. He’d encountered people’s limits before, but never with kissing.   
“Okay,” Poe said, “No kissing.”   
Now he was at a loss of where to even start. Kissing was always the beginning and end of it.   
And a significant portion of the middle, too.   
Hux sighed.   
“You should shower,” Hux said.   
“Are you saying I smell?” Poe said.   
“No,” Hux said, “I’m saying you should shower. If you want.”   
Poe understood.   
“Are you coming in with me?”   
“No.”   
Poe did not understand.   
He was oddly flustered, especially with Hux staring down at him in such an intense way.   
“It’s not hygienic,” Hux supplied, as though that was a helpful statement, “There are towels in the fresher.”   
Hux pointed to the door on the left, and obligingly, Poe trailed off to the refresher.   
No-one had made him shower before sex before.   
He turned the shower on, delighted by the fall of truly hot water, and spent a few minutes snooping.   
The cupboard under the sink was full of cleaning products, the draw full of toothbrushes and toothpaste, hair pomade, stims and painkillers and sedatives and more, unlabelled bottles of pills.   
Poe didn’t think Hux would be the sort to keep anything of great importance in his refresher, but he couldn’t help be disappointed by his lack of findings.   
He showered quickly. He could have easily spent a life time in there. It felt like a century since he’d last had a peaceful shower.   
What he really wanted was a bath. With oils. And wine.   
He stroked his face in the mirror, laughed at himself. He looked tired. Worn-out.   
He was about to sleep with his biggest enemy in the galaxy, and he didn’t even feel bad about it. He was looking forward to it.   
He tied a towel around himself, carried his rumpled uniform in his arms as he left the bathroom.   
The room was empty, and so cold.   
The only room left was, Poe assumed, Hux’s bedroom.   
It was just as neatly bland as the rest of his quarters, even if the bed was truly massive compared to the cot Poe had been sleeping in.   
Hux was still fully dressed, gave Poe a dirty look as he dropped his uniform onto the bed, and started tidying after him, folding the uniform with rehearsed efficiency.   
Folding clothes was probably Hux’s idea of a good time. Hux placed the folded clothes on a small armchair tucked into the corner of the room.   
It was midnight-blue, crushed velvet.   
Not the sort of thing he’d associate with the preferred cold minimalism of the First Order or as Hux as an individual.   
“Would you prefer if I showered, too, or - ”  
“No,” Poe said, “Stay here.”   
Hux pulled off Poe’s towel. Poe grinned, enjoyed the hungry look on Hux’s face.   
Hux sank to his knees.   
“Is there anything else?”   
“Excuse me,” Hux said, looking up at Poe through fair eyelashes.   
“You said no kissing,” said Poe, “Is there anything else you don’t want?”   
“Oh,” said Hux, eyebrows knitted together contemplatively, “Don’t hit me?”   
“I wasn’t going - ”  
He cut himself off when Hux took him in his mouth, bent his head back and then felt Hux pull away.   
“Is there anything I shouldn’t do?” Hux said.   
“No,” Poe said, “I mean, I’m sure I’ll think of some - ”

*

Immediately after Poe had finished, Hux left him standing in the middle of the room, disappearing from the room.   
“Isn’t there anything I can do for you?” Poe called after him, to no reply.   
He cleaned himself off with the abandoned towel, briefly considering looking through Hux’s things, but contended himself with putting on his regulation undershirt and underpants, and sat on Hux’s bed.   
And then lay on it.   
It was definitely better than his own. He decided it was unlikely Hux would mind if he closed his mind, and if did, well, fuck him.   
He closed his eyes, rearranged the soft, crisp sheets.   
“Comfortable?”  
Poe opened one eye.   
Hux’s hair was wet, had probably changed uniforms, though he looked exactly the same, just with bare hands.   
“Very,” Poe said.   
“I have work to do,” Hux said, “But you can stay here.”   
“Aren’t you coming to bed?” Poe said, “You know what sleep is, right?”   
“No, I have work to do,” Hux said.   
“Let me guess, you can’t tell me what it is you’re doing?”   
“You’re smarter than you look,” Hux said.   
Poe sits up in bed.   
“Ya know, General, a guy could start to think you only liked him for his looks,” Poe said, “Come and sit with me. Until I fall back asleep, seeing as you woke me.”   
Hux huffed, but came in closer, taking of his boots and putting them in the corner, toes to the wall, and sat beside Poe.   
“Are you happy?” Hux said.   
“Happier if you led down and fell asleep next to me,” Poe said.   
“I’ve already taken a stim,” said Hux, “That’s not going to happen for another six hours at least.”   
“They’re not good for you,”  
“Neither is smoking,” Hux said, “But I still do it.”   
Hux leans against the pillows, pulling his long legs on the bed. Poe moves closer to him, takes his hand, strokes the slender fingers, smooths the rough, oddly scarred palms.   
“Was it okay?” Hux said, quietly.   
“You mean the blow job?” Poe said.   
“Hm.”   
“It was great,” Poe said, “Next time I’d appreciate if you let me return the favour…”   
“Knowing you were satisfied was enough for me,” Hux said, “But if you really feel so inclined, I’m sure I could arrange something.”   
“Don’t feel as though you have to rearrange your schedule,” Poe said.   
“Oh, I’d never,” said Hux, “Are you asleep yet?”   
“Nope,” Poe said.   
He rested his head against Hux’s chest. He wasn’t a very satisfactory pillow, especially with the belt digging into Poe’s neck.   
“I could really do with a cig right about now,” said Poe, smiling as he felt Hux’s chest tense underneath him.   
“If you ever smoke in my bed, I’ll - ”  
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Poe said, “I’m sure it’ll be real bad. You’re a neat freak, aren’t you?”   
“Because I don’t want you to get ash in my bed I’m a freak?” Hux said.   
“No, because of everything. The shower thing. Constant gloves. The way you stir your tea. This room is more sterile than the Medbay.”   
Hux moved, letting Poe’s head fall onto the mattress.   
“Wanting someone to shower before a sexual encounter is not out of the ordinary. The fact you think it is makes me very glad that you did.”   
Hux leaves the bed and starts putting his boots back on again.   
Poe grab his belt and pulls him back. It’s a gentle pull, but Hux chooses to fall into it.   
“I thought we agreed you were staying,” said Poe.   
“That was before you started insulting me,” Hux said.   
Hux’s expression was fairly blank. Poe couldn’t decide if Hux was joking or if he really was that thin-skinned.   
“I didn’t mean it as a bad thing, necessarily,” Poe said, opting not to tell Hux to consider therapy, “I just noticed that you’re a bit preoccupied by neatness.”   
Hux rolled his eyes, but stayed lying down, head and shoulders on the bed, feet still planted to the floor. Poe reached out to touch his hair, darker than usual with its dampness, but soft.   
“I like your hair like this,” Poe said.   
“You would,” Hux said, “It’s awful.”   
“Are you trying to say that theres something wrong with my hair?” Poe said.   
He knew the answer: he’d not cut it quite to First Order specifications months ago.   
Hux’s lips twitched.   
“I think you know its not regulation,” Hux said.   
“I think you’ve let me get away with far too much to start enforcing such petty rules.”   
“You’re a lost cause, Grus.”   
Hux doesn’t know how right he is.   
Doesn’t know he could be a lost cause, too.   
Poe closes his eyes and starts to imagine a world where he leaves, goes back to the Resistance, takes Hux with him.   
Where Hux gives them all the information he has, where he helps them win, pulls the First Order apart.  
Where he says Poe’s real name.   
He lets himself fall asleep, hopes to dream about the possible future he’s created for them, but when he wakes up, he finds he didn’t dream of anything.   
After getting dressed, he finds Hux exactly where he expects to, drinking tea at his desk and staring at the Datapad like it had personally offended him.   
“Hi,” Poe said.   
He feels warm when Hux turns around to greet him, the soft, genuine smile on his face, warming his features.   
Hux stands up.   
“This,” Hux said, touching Poe’s belt, “Should be here.”   
He adjusted it, not meeting Poe in the eye the whole time.  
“Thanks,” said Poe, “Couldn’t do this without you.”   
“Of course not,” Hux said.   
He sat back down at his desk. Poe wanted to lean over him, watch what he was doing, breathe in the soap-and-tea smell.   
“You don’t have to tell me what you’re doing,” Poe said, cautiously.  
“Yes, I know that.”   
“But can you tell me why you’re so…stressed?”   
Hux moved to face Poe.   
“It has to be perfect,” said Hux, “It’s big.”  
“A weapon, obviously. Or a ship?”   
Hux nodded, vague look plastered about his pale face.  
“It’s bigger than the galaxy has ever seen,” said Hux, “Bigger, better than the Death Star.”   
“More destructive.”   
When Hux nods, it’s not with regret, or fear, or solemnity, but pride, and there’s an almost gleeful glint in his eyes.   
Poe knew then, that getting Hux to see his side of things wasn’t going to be as easy as he’d have hoped. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for the very kind comments and kudos on the last chapter! It really makes my day. And thank you for reading and sticking with my non-existent update schedule.


	5. Betting Limit

There are two things that float around Hux’s mind: finishing Starkiller and Grus. One was obviously more pressing than the other, but while thinking of Starkiller left him panicked and too wired to sleep, thinking of Grus relaxed him, much better than cigarettes ever had. 

He gets a sick, sinking feeling of humiliation whenever he thinks of Grus, of that night. He’s been avoiding him since, which he knows is cruel. 

He can’t even looking at him without feeling nauseated, without feeling his face grow red. It had been well over a decade since he’d had see someone he spent the night with again. 

Grus looks over at him and smiles a few times, stops when he realises Hux isn’t smiling back. 

He thinks of Grus telling his friends, about how easy it was to get him on his knees, how pathetic and desperate he is. 

Grus is maybe too nice for that. 

It would not be the first time Hux thought someone was too nice for that. He wasn’t much good at determining peoples intentions, not when he was young. Armitage had learned all that the long, hard way. 

He could let himself believe that Grus was different. At least, that Grus would want something more from him, be it sex or a promotion or just a little company. Hux could pretend the rest, pretend it meant more than it did, even though it embarrassed him. 

He’d never wanted more. Never wanted to spend time with people. 

He couldn’t even stand eating in cantinas, drinking in bars, hated the crowds and idle chatter. He was happiest alone. 

He’d told himself that since he was five. 

Grus, he could live with. He’d liked knowing he was sleeping in the next room while he was working. 

Liked the idea that, if he wanted, he could get up from his desk and crawl into bed and lie next to someone who wouldn’t be gone when he woke up. 

It would be much easier to pretend these things if he stayed away. But he doesn’t. He leans over Grus while he’s working, or rather, pretending to work. 

“You’re not convincing me,” he said, quietly. 

“And here I am, thinking I’m a good actor,” Grus said, “Are we…” 

“I’ll speak with you later. Get back to work,” Hux said. 

*

Later, he eats in the cantina. He’s not actually hungry, and the canteen for the lower ranking officers is larger and seems less sanitary than the one he usually uses. They’re expected to clean up after themselves, the cleaning droids only come around to do the auxiliary work after everyone has left. 

He doesn’t like the food, either, but he’s never cared much for it. 

He gets there after Grus, worried that if he sat down first Grus might be tempted to sit next to him, or worse, across from him, and they’d have to look at each-other, make awkward conversation.

It wouldn’t be like it was when they were alone. 

And Grus wouldn’t win friends by sitting next to him, either. They’d brand him as a suck-up (still, he seemed to have quite an entourage) 

And then, Habea makes his way over to him sits across from him without waiting for an invitation (he’d always thought he could just do that, that Habea’s father’s ranking somehow passed onto him). 

“Sir,” He says, as he sits down, “If I could have a word?” 

“Of course,” Hux said, “Habella, is it?” 

Habea bulks. Knows Hux knows who he is. 

“Habea, sir, Lieutenant Habea.” 

“My apologies,” Hux said, “What is it you want to talk about?” 

He gazes behind Habea, watches Grus laugh, the rest of his table chuckle with him. He’s never made anyone laugh like that. 

Habea turns follows his gaze. 

“It’s about him,” Grus said. 

“Who?” Hux said, takes a drink of water, looks down at his unappetising plate. 

He’s not sure what he’s chosen. Potato, maybe? And something purple. 

“Grus. Did Lyra not say anything to you?” Habea said, eyes bulging.

“ _Captain_ Lyra passed on your report to me regarding Sergeant Grus, yes,” Hux said. 

“And?” 

Hux looked up from his food, titled his head to one-side.

“Excuse me?” 

Habea looked more pissed off than cowed, but looked around the room, trying to decide whether or not maintain decorum. 

Hux had seen that look plenty.  
Anyone who was older than him gave it to him frequently, those who knew him as a child, those who thought his father brought him to the top, or that he’d simply murdered or slept or schemed. He’d heard all the rumours. 

Granted, some of them were more believable than others. 

“General Hux, sir,” he says, “What was your decision regarding my suggestions?” 

“I am not in the habit of taking suggestions from Lieutenants, Habea,” Hux said, “Especially when they seem quite extreme and based entirely in speculation.” 

“I heard the conversation myself, General - ” Habea said, spitting. Hux steadied himself from flinching backwards. Now he definitely wasn’t going to be able to eat. 

“I don’t doubt what you heard,” Hux said, “Of course such opinions as those you claim Grus holds are counter to our cause, and ideally, they’d be crushed. But even you must hold some… _treasonous_ opinions, no?” 

“I have no such -you are - ” Habea stands, finger pointing towards Hux. 

If it were a different time, if he were a different age, Hux would have snapped his finger. Even now, he considered it, but people were looking. 

“I’m what?” Hux said, stood himself. 

“Nothing, sir, I didn’t mean anything by it, General.” 

“Of course you didn’t. Now go…somewhere else, please.” 

He waits until Habea has scarpered, until everyone in the room has gone back to their personal affairs, and he leaves himself. 

Hux isn’t one for disposing of his own soldiers, especially not fairly insignificant ones who lack the creativity required for mutiny like Habea, but he’d push him into an escape shuttle and send it off into the abyss of space with nothing but Habea inside given only half a chance. 

He smokes a cigarette alone, Grus joins him as he lights up his second, which he ends up passing off to him. 

“I didn’t expect to see you in there,” Grus said, “I was starting to think you _really_ didn’t eat.” 

“Don’t be - ”

“Ridiculous?” 

“Shut up,” said Hux, “Habea has it in for you.” 

“I know,” said Grus, “He’s got in for you, too, you know.” 

“I’m aware,” Hux said, “As did his father.” 

“That part I didn’t know,” Grus said, “What did you do to annoy that dynasty of assholes?” 

Hux considers, relaxes. It’s not new information to anyone but Grus.  
“Habea Sr. was a friend of my father’s. So he never much cared me, and he suspected me of killing him.”

“Your father?” Grus said. 

“Half the galaxy thinks I killed him, though, most of them were glad to see the back of him. Habea thought he represented what the Order should be, or, as he saw it, return to.” 

“Did you?” Grus said, “Kill your father?” 

“Yes. I looked him in the eye,” said Hux, “And I killed him.” 

“I’d always heard you had someone else kill him.” 

“I started that rumour,” Hux said, “It’s much easier to get things done when people suspect you’re not capable of doing it.” 

“So you’ve killed other people, too,” 

“I’ve killed dozens of people, Grus. Thousands, if you count the weapons I’ve built.” 

“More, with the new one?” 

Hux swallows, wishes, vaguely, he’d never told Grus about it. He could pretend, a little more, a little better, that a relationship could work. 

Grus, obviously, did not want people to die. Even those who would stand in the way of the First Order. He’d known plenty like him. 

They usually died the quickest. 

“Yes.” 

“ _Why_?” Grus said, stubbing out his cigarette. 

“If we do not destroy the Republic, they will destroy us. Our survival depends on it.” 

Hux can see the next question in Grus’s eyes, it’s one he asked himself, years ago, one that even Grus isn’t reckless enough to say out-loud. _Is it worth it?_

“Do you think if the Republic - and the Resistance - fall, that that will be it? All enemies destroyed? No more questions, no more war?” 

“I can hope,” Hux said. 

“That’s all anyone can do,” said Grus. 

He stares at the cigarette but doesn’t smoke it, just watches it burn down. 

“You’re not happy, are you?” Hux said. 

“What?” 

“Being here. Being a navigator. You’d rather be flying,” Hux said, “I can change that.” 

“You want me gone?”

“Of course not,” Hux said, “I’d want you to be happy.” 

Grus heaves a huge sigh, lifts and drops those shoulders that Hux knows that, under the uniform, are broad and well-muscled. 

“After, _what happened,”_ Grus said, with a significant, pointed look, “I’m worried that when the time comes I won’t be able to do what needs to be done. Even if I wanted to pilot again, I’m not sure I could.” 

“How noble,” said Hux, unsure if he feels as sarcastic as he sounds. 

Grus’s posture changes, squares, almost like he’s ready for a fight.

“Are you happy?” He said. 

It’s accusatory, like he thinks he knows the answer. 

“Of course not,” 

Grus looks taken aback, he wasn’t expecting to hear the truth, just as Armitage wasn’t expecting to tell it. 

“What do I have to happy about? A stagnant, never-ending war? A failing weapon? Damned force-users breathing down my neck, infecting my mind whenever they please? A ship, where, everyone who talks to me is either a backstabber, hoping I’ll say something incriminating or a sycophant wanting something from me?” 

Grus’s eyebrows are knitted closely together, the rich brown eyes looking truly dark for the first time. 

“Which am I, then?” 

“I don’t know _what_ you are.” 

Armitage doesn’t think Grus is hurt, doesn’t think he has any right to be. After all, it’s Hux’s reputation that would be most damaged by the tryst.

“I’m not a sycophant,” Grus said. 

“I understand that,” Hux said, “Considering everything you’ve ever said to me. You’d be a horribly obvious traitor, too.” 

Grus laughs. 

“I would, wouldn’t I?” 

“I need to go,” Hux said, “I’ll see you…after your shift?” 

“Is that an invitation to your bedchamber, General?” 

Hux considers retracting the offer. 

Instead he nods, allows Grus to exit the door before he does, more for an excuse to watch him leave rather than to be polite. 

*

Hux recuses himself from his shift before it’s official end, feeding Mitaka a half-truth about some private matter-of-business for the Supreme Leader. Mitaka never asks for further explanation when Hux mentions the Supreme Leader or Kylo Ren. 

It’s so rare that he leaves a shift early rather than extending it that he earns himself a few pairs of curious eyes burning into the back of his skull, but it can’t really be helped. 

He’s not _needed_ there constantly. The more he’s there the more they feel entitled to ask him stupid questions.

He’s so close to his own quarters when, from the down the long, empty corridor, a large voice shouts at him. 

“ _Hey, General Asshole!”_

“Captain Phasma,” he said. Even if he didn’t recognise her voice, he was aware there was only one person on his ship who would speak to him like that. 

He didn’t turn to face her, but stood and waited until she caught up. 

“Where’ve you been?” She said. 

“Avoiding you, actually,” Hux said, “If you’ll excuse me…” 

“No, no, not yet,” she said, “What happened to your manners?” 

“I must’ve left them somewhere,” Hux said, “If you wait here, I could go look for them.” 

“Seriously, I feel like I haven’t gotten you alone for weeks.”

“Probably accurate,” Hux said, “Would you like to come have some tea?” 

“I’m not drinking that crap you call tea,” said Phasma, smiling widely, and opened her mouth to say something more.

“Good, I was hoping you’d say that,” Hux said, “Or, something along those lines, at least.”

In all honestly, it had been playing in the back of his mind that he’d wanted to talk to Phasma. 

They were no-where near as close as they had once been, though it couldn’t be particularly helped: their schedules varied and none of their meetings were private, Hux suspected, by design. 

At one time, they’d managed to meet in the training room occasionally, for sparring, if Phasma had her way, or for running on the treadmill, if Hux got his. 

They’d been closer still before they had any kind of significant rank between them. Phasma, probably, was the closest thing he’d had to a friend. 

He didn’t want to tell her about Grus, but she’d always had a talent of getting her way. 

She followed him back to his quarters.

“So,” she said, putting her helmet on his desk heavy-handedly, in a way the seemed purposefully designed to get him to flinch. 

The dark-glass top scratched easily. 

“So?” 

“Why have you been avoiding me?” 

They’d gone beyond, joking now, she looked suspicious, sitting in his chair in a way that made him feel like a guest in his own room. 

“I haven’t,” Hux said, “I messaged you yesterday.” 

“No, you fed me some bullshit yesterday, Armitage,” Phasma said, “You’re not any busier than I am.”

“I think that’s debatable,” Hux said, “I’ve been busy with - ”

“Your weapons, I know,” Phasma said, “You need to relax.” 

She folded on leg over her knee. 

“I thought you were making me a drink?” 

“Make it yourself,” Hux said, “What’s gotten under _your_ skin?”

She scowled at the floor, making some half-growl of frustration before stalking across the room to mess up his tea. 

Hux took his seat back. 

If she was standing, she might be easier to edge out of the room. 

“I had to take a trooper out of commission last night.” 

“Excuse me?” 

“Now you’re paying attention. It’s why I requested an urgent meeting, Armitage,” Phasma said. 

“If you told me what it had been about, I might’ve - ”

“Might.” Phasma said darkly.

She did have a point, he supposed. 

“I don’t like to be surprised, Phasma,” He said, “What happened? Does Ren know?” 

“Of course Ren knows,” Phasma said, “He was there.” 

“He was there?” 

“Yes, yes, getting jealous?” Phasma said, “We actually have plans for a tea party next week, though you mustn’t tell him I told you…” 

Hux narrowed his eyes at her. He wasn’t jealous, he had little interest in the day-to-day running out the trooper programmes, that was Phasma’s purview. But it had always been him and her against Ren, and before him about a dozen other similar petty tyrants, including his father. 

“Well, what did Ren do?” 

“This isn’t about Kylo Ren,” said Phasma, “I’ll tell you if you stop interrupting.”

“I won’t interrupt,” Hux said. 

She bought a tea over to him, sat leaning against the desk. He wheeled backwards to look at her properly. 

She look paler, maybe, lilac circles under her eyes. 

Phasma was hardly soft on the troopers, cared about them insofar as what they could do for the Order, but it didn’t mean she’d take joy in putting them down like dogs. 

“She was good,” Phasma said, “Exceptional, even. I’ve never had a problem with her, she’s never disobeyed an order, not since I’ve known her. You know, actually, she sort of reminds me of you, she doesn’t look like much, just a skinny, anaemic-looking thing, but - ”

“Is insulting me really a necessary part of this story?”

“I said, don’t interrupt,” 

“I wasn’t interrupting, I was commenting, that’s how conversations work.” 

She dipped her fingers into her tea and then flicked them in his face. 

“You’re such a child,” he said, going to fetch a towel.

“And you’re a prig,” she said, sliding across the desk and down into his seat. 

“Will you just tell me - ”

“ _Anyway,_ she doesn’t - didn’t - seem like much, but she’s near a perfect shot. It’s a waste, really, because she lost his mind.” 

“Combat stress?” 

She glared at his interruption, but shook her head all the same. 

“Nothing recent. They were in bed, she and her bunkmates. There was a commotion - Ren heard - we got there at the same time. She was strangling the trooper that slept below her. None of the others knew why, as far as they understood they’d not been particular friends or enemies. It’s like she snapped and tried to kill the nearest person to him.”

She paused, her eyes flickered over him, he wondered, briefly, how she wanted him to react. 

“No comments?” She said. 

He folded his arms across himself, before quickly moving them back behind his back. 

“You had no choice, clearly she was liability,” Hux said. 

Phasma nodded sternly. 

“I’m glad you agree,” Phasma said, “When we got there, Ren threw her off. And then I shot her.” 

“What about the trooper she tried to kill?” 

“Oh, she’s fine,” Phasma said, “A few bruises.” 

Hux bit his lip. He rather got the feeling that Phasma had something else to say. 

“What was her designation?” He said. 

Bleakly, he’d almost asked for her name. The word had been on the tip of the tongue, a grim thought, having to tell her parents. It was good she didn’t have anything. 

“FN-2010.” Phasma said. 

He nodded, as if he was going to remember it, as if it would make a difference if he did. 

“Does that mean this meeting can be adjourned, now?” Hux said, “I had plans.” 

“ _Plans._ ” She snorted, “Armitage, I didn’t just come here to tell you something you’d read in a report in a couple of hours, anyway.” 

“Then what did bring you here,” he said he takes out his Datapad and pretends to be reading through his messages. 

“I was concerned about your health,” Phasma said, “I think - ”

“That I’m in over my head?” Hux said, snapping the Datapad back off. 

It was only the look she gave him that made him realise that he’d sounded slightly hysterical. 

“Did I say that? I know what you can handle,” Phasma said, “I’m not concerned about your work. Or your competency, or whatever paranoid fantasies you hold. I’m concerned about you as my _brother_.” 

“Oh _,_ don’t pull fake sisterly concern card on me, Phasma,” Hux said. 

She stood up, pulling herself to her full height. 

“As my adopted _little brother_ ,” she said, “I think you need to sleep more.” 

“When Starkiller is complete,” he said, dodging the soft punch she aimed at his shoulder, “I’ll sleep for twelve hours.” 

“Times that twelve and you might start to look half-way human again,” she said. 

“What happened to being concerned?” 

She shrugged. 

“It was never going to last that long,” she said, picking up her cup, pouring its contents into his full one, which, considering her fingers had already been in it, he certainly wasn’t going to be drinking (not that he would ever entertain drinking someone’s leftovers, anyway), “Well. I’m going to leave you to your fictitious plans, and I’ll see you in gym tomorrow. I’m sure you could do with some exercise.” 

“Goodnight, Captain Phasma,” he said, walking her to the door, pressing the helmet into her hands, and gently nudging her away. 

He was relieved that she’d left before Grus got there. Phasma wouldn’t _tell_ anyone. She probably had even less people to tell than he did. 

She’d say, “W _hat does HE, see in YOU?”_ Or similar, and the worse thing would be that she would have a point. He’d never considered himself unattractive, but Grus was better looking than he did. And as Phasma would say, whatever he did have in looks he’d make up for with his terrible personality. 

She’d be joking, or she’d say she was, but it would ultimately be true. 

Still, as long Grus didn’t figure that out he’d be just fine, for now. 

He showered and changed his uniform, considered letting his hair dry however it wanted, because Grus had said he liked it, but changed his mind a few minutes before Grus’s shift was due to end. 

He started to get nervous again, the palms of his hands itched beneath his gloves. 

If Grus didn’t turn up, he’d look like an idiot, even if it was just privately. 

He distracted himself with feeding the plant some poor, small, frozen mammal. 

Grus was late. 

He checked his messages again - short term notice of a planet-side meeting, _mandatory_ \- he hated the thought of it and ignored the rest of his messages. They could wait. 

Hux was stupid. Should he just go to bed, alone, ignore Grus even if he did show up? 

That thought was entertained only until he heard a soft tap at the door. 

Grus put his hands up to reach for his face the second the door closed behind him. 

“Ah, sorry,” Grus said, when Armitage pulled away, “No kissing, I’m not used to that. Why _don’t_ you like it?” 

Hux burned with embarrassment. 

Grus didn’t seem to be trying to make fun of him, but he felt like he was all the same. 

“Is it the germs thing? ‘Cause I suppose I can see how it can be a bit weird…” 

Hux nodded, thankful for the feeble-sounding excuse. It was much less pathetic than the real reason. 

“I’m going away soon,” Hux said, surprising himself. He’d not planned to announce it to Grus. 

“Why?” 

“Meeting. Planet-side.”

“You want me to water Peter?” 

“Certainly not,” Hux said, “It will definitely try to kill you if tried to do that.” 

“Thought you said it was harmless?” 

“I was lying,” Hux said, “To avoid alarming you. The acid can burn right through your uniform, your skin, your bones…” 

“But most importantly my uniform, got it.” 

“So you have been paying attention,” Hux said. 

Grus smiled so easily. And it was always genuine, too. 

“I should probably only miss one or two shifts,” Hux said, “Depending on time. Old Generals do like to talk.” 

“That’s not the spirit I’d expect from you,” Grus said. 

“I didn’t think I had to pretend to care about old-men with old-fashioned ideas when I was with you,” Hux said.

“You don’t have to pretend about anything,” Grus said. 

“Good,” Hux said, “Now, shall we do something a little more interesting?” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for the comments and kudos so far. Really keeps me going as I'm still in semi-lockdown so thanks!


	6. Interlude One: PHASMA

(A LONG-ISH TIME AGO)   
  


Phasma is fourteen when Sen takes her to some back-water swamp of a planet. Gone are the long, glistening clean corridors and high ceilings, replaced by dirt and strange trees the weep a thick, mucus-looking sludge.   
Neither of them are dressed in trooper armour, and Sen was uncharacteristically quiet on the journey. He’d told her that this was the best opportunity she’d get. Without it, she’d live and die, cannon fodder, like the rest.   
Regardless of her circumstances, Phasma planned to fight more for the living part than the dying part, but if there was an option that made that goal easier, she’d take it.   
It’s about an hour long hike from where they land to a little primitive village, consisting mainly of wooden huts and just a handful of stone buildings.   
“They choose to live like this,” Sen said, “They think that technology only breeds destruction, so they live like vermin.”   
“Who would choose to live with this stink?” Phasma said, “Where are we going?”   
“Other side of the hill,” Sen said, “No-one would think the General would bunker down here.”   
Phasma agrees, cause you’d have to be insane to live there, even if you were burying your head in the sand.   
She’s tired and filthy up to her knees by the time she gets to the house. It’s probably the largest one of the planet, and it’s not very big.   
It’s like an old castle, made of large grey stones, tall and imposing and cold.   
The entrance way is just as bleak as the outside, but as they move deeper into the bowels of the manor, it warms. It’s not exactly contemporary, with it’s fireplaces and massive rugs, but the lights are electric, at least, and there’s warmth coming from beneath the stones, too.   
“We don’t have time to tidy up,” Sen said, looking her up and down with a slight curl of the lip.   
“It matters what I do, not what I look like,” Phasma said.   
Sen smiled tightly.   
“Don’t speak to Brendol like that,” he said, pointing a dark brown finger in her face, “At least, not until he decides he likes you.”   
“How will I know if he likes me?” Phasma said.   
“You just will,” Sen said.   
They stamp their boots out and a timid looking girl of about Phasma’s age collects them and leads them up a flight of stairs, knocking on a large wooden door. She opens it, stands aside and closes them in, alone.   
“Don’t touch anything,” Sen said.   
He’s standing at attention already.   
“I’m not going to,” Phasma said.   
The room is the lightness they’ve seen so far, the floor is wood laminate instead of stone, and walls covered in a smooth, white, plastic sort of sheeting.   
The brightness of it almost hurts her eyes after the natural dimness of the hallways. She holds her hands behind her back, deciding its safest to copy Sen.   
The next time the door opens, the man Phasma recognises as General Brendol Hux enters, trailed by a smaller shadow of himself. She vaguely recalls Sen telling her about a bastard son.   
Hux Sr, is about her height, about as broader, to, but typically for older Generals he’s more barrel-shaped, softer in a middle-aged way. He hasn’t seen battle or fitness training in a long time.   
If ever.   
“Sir,” says Sen, saluting, and Phasma copies again.   
“Captain Sentinel, it’s good of you to come,” Hux said.   
The bastard, Phasma can’t remember if Sen even told her his name, lurks behind his father. He’s younger than her by a few years. He’s skinny but he’s still got a childish roundness to his face, and he’s not looking at any of them, rather the floor, lips moving but not making any sound.   
Apart from his orange hair, he’s got the appearance of someone who looks like they’ve been left out in the rain too long. Pale, washed-out face. Trousers that were maybe once black, with a mismatched beige shirt, brown boots and a dark blue jacket with rolled-up sleeves that definitely didn’t belong to him. Compared to his impeccably uniformed father, he looks scruffy.   
Phasma wonders why she lets him get away with it.   
“So this is what you’ve brought to me,” Hux Sr said. Phasma snaps to attention.   
She’s been looked at this a thousand times. Like she’s an animal being checked out before a race.   
She looks a good soldier, she knows that.   
She’s tall, one of the tallest of those she’s trained with. She’s stronger than she looks and she looks very strong.   
Everything about her appearance, her hair, her nails, match protocol exactly. Her clothes don’t, but they were told specifically not to draw attention to themselves. In fitting with the village, they look like ancient peasants.   
“This is Phasma,” Sen said, “She’s the best I have, sir,”   
“We’ll see about that,” the General says, “Shooting?”   
“Perfect,” Sen says, “She can fly, too. But her speciality is her hand and hand combat, sir. She’s the best fighter I’ve seen, anywhere.”   
The old General tilts his head to one side, cold blue eyes sparkling with amusement.   
“Her?”   
“Yes, sir,” Sen said, “If I may speak freely, I would not have brought her all the way here if I had any doubts.”   
“She’s young,”   
“Experience matters more than age,” Sen says, his tone still light and respectful.   
“How is she at following orders?”   
“She can be strong-willed,” Sen said, “But fortunately her will reflects that of the Order.”   
Brendol takes a step back, looks at his son, chewing his lips to the side.   
“Hit him,” Hux Sr said, pointing.   
The boy’s eyes snap up.   
“General,” Sen said.   
Hux Sr holds up his hand and Sen falls silent. Phasma looks at him, but he doesn’t give her a clue.   
She wishes the kid would run, make it hard for her, but he just stares at her, makes her almost want to hit him.   
So she reaches out and backhands him across the face.   
She thinks she could have gotten away with making it look harder than it was, but instead she uses a significant portion of her strength, and he falls to the floor.   
“Get up,” Hux Sr says to the boy.   
He scrambles to his feet, nose bleeding, he glowers at Phasma.   
“Go clean yourself up,” Hux Sr said, and the boy scarpers from the room, “Well, that confirms one thing.”   
“You approve, then, sir?” Sen said. He clears his throat after he speaks, not before, so when he spoke he sounded slightly choked.   
“For now,” Hux Sr said, “A trial run. She knows what is expected of her as a bodyguard, I take it?”   
“I’ll make sure she does, sir,” Sen said.   
Brendol makes to leave pauses in front of her, waiting for something.   
“Thank you for this opportunity, General Hux,” Phasma says, though she doesn’t want to be anyone’s bodyguard, “I will not disappoint you.”   
*

The invitation Sen had received to ate supper with Hux had not been extended to her, so Phasma ate supper alone. It wasn’t too bad, actually.   
She enjoyed the peace. She was used to being surrounded by hundreds of ravenous troopers, most of them with no manners to speak of.   
The food was nice, too. A stew full of vegetables she didn’t recognise but were tasty enough, and a strange meat that was maybe a little too tough but nothing to turn her nose up at.   
And two bread rolls, still warm from the oven so that the real butter than she was given melted into it.   
If this was how they ate, she supposed she could get accustomed to being a damn bodyguard.   
After supper, she washed up in warm water and set out her clothes for the next day, though she had not been told how to dress.   
Would she gave to put on the ugly brown garb? She only felt like herself in armour.   
She was about get into bed when a cold hand grabbed her ankle and pulled her roughly. Unprepared, she fell to the ground.   
Before she had a chance to get to her feet, Hux’s bastard had rolled out from under her bed and had fallen on her, he punched her once, directly in the nose, which hurt more than she’d been expecting, and then he wrapped his hands around her neck.   
The second she covers from her initial shock she throws off her, halfway across the room, where he lands, crashing into the mirror.   
She approached him, hoped she’s not killed him, having planned on simply knocking him out or putting him in a restraining hold, if he’s still conscious. His eyes are closed, she leans in.   
He reaches out and grabs hold of her by the collar of her robe and pulls her down. She puts out a hand to steady herself, yelling out when she puts her hand directly into a pile of glass shards, and he kicks her in the stomach.   
Angry, now, that scrawny brat had gotten the jump on her twice, she grabs him, one arm around his neck, the other pinning his arm back.   
He struggles against her, slithers around bites her on the arm, hard enough to draw blood. She doesn’t let herself let go, pulls hard at his arm until she hears a familiar pop of the shoulder and the door swings open.   
He doesn’t shout out when she dislocates his shoulder, which surprises her, because she’s made men twice his size and age scream with that move.   
“Phasma,” Sen says, “Are you alright?”   
She drops the boy onto the floor. Brendol Hux glares at him, thuds into the bedroom, and picks his son up by the arm she’d just pulled out of it’s socket like a little rag-doll.   
He whines this time, but Brendol just shakes him in response.   
“Quiet, brat,” he said, “I’ll have someone clean this up in the morning.”   
And he left, dragging the boy along after him.   
Phasma stays kneeling in the mess on the floor, until Sen gestures to her to get up.   
He takes her back down into the kitchens, sits her at the table. He searches the cupboards.   
“No bacta,” he said, “Nothing at all useful.”   
He fillrf a small bowl with warm water and finds a couple of square clothes and sits down opposite her.   
“I thought something like that would happen,” Sen said, taking her hand.   
“You thought that that vicious little animal would come into my room and attack me and didn’t think to warn me?” Phasma said.   
She grits her teeth as he begins to pick out shards of glass.   
“Not exactly,” Sen said, “At least, not so soon. You’re not the first, is it what I’m saying.”   
Phasma scoffs.   
“And why did he do that?” Phasma said.   
“I don’t know what goes through his head,” Sen says, “You said, he’s vicious. Probably wanted to get back at you for hitting him earlier.”   
“By trying to kill me?” Phasma said.   
But she’d known many a prideful little boy in training, who took every punch like a personal slight.   
Sen looks around, drops his voice.  
“The last time he did that, it wasn’t of his own volition.”   
“What - do you think Hux?”  
“He could have been testing you,” Sen said, “Or the kid. Put the idea in his head of how to earn some respect. Maybe he simply wanted to see how you’d handle the situation.”   
“And what do you think?” Phasma said, “Of how I handled the situation?”  
“Quite efficiently. Although loudly. And I wouldn’t have dislocated his shoulder.”   
“He bit me. I could have a disease!” Phasma said.   
Sen smiled at her, but it a weak one.   
“Yeah, he’s a little bastard in more ways than the obvious,” Sen said, “And he can’t seem to stay out of trouble for the life of him, but he’s a kid, Phasma. Just a kid.”   
“So was I,” Phasma said, “I must’ve been that age when you found me. Younger.”   
“And if I recall,” Sen said, “You fought everyone on everything for weeks. Use leniency. Save your energy for real threats.”  
“Fine,” said Phasma, “But I’m not going to let him get away with being an asshole just because he’s Hux’s kid.”  
“I wouldn’t want you to,” Sen said, “Now, let me see this bite…” 

*

There’s not much of a fitness room at the house. According to Sen, Hux was only staying there for a few weeks after his last assassination attempt, and had few plans to stay planet-side for very long.   
It comforted Phasma.   
Soon, she’d been back on a ship, which she belonged, and the little brat would be sent to wherever it was that he went when the General worked.   
Not that she saw much of him - or anyone - for the next few days.   
In the mornings, she and Sen would go into a large, empty room with a padded floor for daily exercise, and then they’d eat breakfast together, and then he’d go to join Brendol for some meetings.   
She liked to jog outside when the sun was at its warmest, which wasn’t very warm, though she’d started to get a little tan after a few daily trips up and down the the hill.   
In the afternoon, she and Sen would meet again and go through security protocols. Who was allowed to meet with Hux, who wasn’t, who should be approached with caution.   
They went through stuff she already knew, too, like how to spot a threat, and how to eliminate said threat from a distance.   
Then she was given free time. Again, she didn’t know what to do with it, and had been warned against walking the hills in the dark because of the nocturnal creatures that lived underground and had a particular taste for human flesh. She found herself thinking for a new reason every day: who would choose this planet?  
Hux Sr didn’t seem to want much to do with her, though he invited her to dinner the night after his son had attacked her, neither of them mentioning the events but the General commending her on her strength.   
It’s not nearly a week since she first got there, when she wanders the manor grounds early in the evening dusk and nearly trips over the boy.   
“What’re you doing on the floor?” She says, standing over him.   
He’s lying on his front, chin pressed to the ground, staring at some thorny shrubbery.   
“Ssh,” he said, placing his fingers to his lips, not looking at her. Then he points at the bush, and she crouches down to see.   
She doesn’t see anything at first, lies down next to him, fleetingly considering it’s a weird trick, but then she spots the gap in the push and peers through.   
The creature is a size of a human baby, scuttling sideways on it’s four, interchangeable limbs. It has a head, with a mouth and rows and rows of fangs but no tongue, no eyes, and no nose. It’s skin is furless, but textured like sand-paper.   
“Oh,” she said, when she really wanted to say Ew.   
“We should go,” the kid said, still whispering, “Unless you want to get eaten.”   
He stands up shakily, like he’s been lying there for a long time and his legs have forgotten how to stand.   
She watches it for a few more seconds, before going after him. It only takes a few strides of catch up with him.  
“Why were you whispering, it doesn’t have ears?” She said.   
He rolls his eyes at her.   
“It can sense sound with it’s skin. The vibrations through the air. That’s how it sees, too. Even breathing can bother it.”   
“Right,” she said, “I didn’t think they were real.”   
The kid struggles with opening the door, and it’s only then that Phasma realises his arm is still hanging limply.   
“Haven’t you had the fixed yet?” She said.   
His eyes narrowed, like he’s only just realised who he’s been talking to.   
“I can help,” she said, “I can pop it back in, no problem.”   
“I have to do it myself,” he said.   
“It’s easier if someone else does it. Come on, it must really hurt.” Phasma said.   
He looks at her like he thinks he’s stupid.   
“My father said I had to do it myself,” He said, “And it doesn’t hurt that bad.”   
The second part was an obvious lie, because he couldn’t seem to move it at all and he was grinding his teeth, even as he spoke.   
“I won’t tell him,” Phasma said, “And you’d have to be pretty stupid to tell him. Even more stupid to think you can pop it back yourself. So let me do it.”   
His eyes were very wide, and it occurred to Phasma that he maybe thought that she was trying to trick him, that she’d report back to his father if he even considered getting her help.   
“No tricks,” she said, “Honestly.”   
He nodded slowly.   
“You need to lie down flat,” she said, “Where’s your room?”   
“You’re in my room.” He said, flatly.   
For a second, Phasma looked around and thought he meant the cold entranceway.   
Then she realised he meant she’d been given his room.   
She really hadn’t made a great first impression.   
“Then where do you sleep?”   
He shrugged his good shoulder, and she sighed, and led back up to her room. His old room.   
He kept looking around like he was expecting his father to jump out from behind a tapestry.   
“He’s in a meeting,” Phasma said, “They said they were taking dinner late, so it won’t be over for a while.”   
The kid nodded unconvincingly.   
He took the oversized, slightly dusty jacket off and laid on the bed obediently when she told him to.   
“It’ll hurt a little,” she said. She has to get on her knees to be at the proper height, takes his hand in hers a pulls his arm, making it level with his body, she starts to shaking his hand in circles, until it’s straight at his shoulder. She rotates his arm, pushing closer to his head until the pop of the joint moving back into its socket rings out in her ears.   
“There,” she said, “Do you have a sling?”   
He sits up, his lips are bleeding from biting down on them and his eyes are pink.   
“No,” he says.  
“You’ll have to figure that out for yourself. Try not to use it so much.”   
“Thank you,” he said, he hobbles off the bed, slightly unbalanced.  
“What is your name?” She said, when she realises she’d never heard anyone say it, not even his father.   
“Armitage,” he said.   
“I’m Phasma,” she said.   
“I know that.” He said, and nodded at her, “Thanks.”   
“Tell him you pushed it in against a tree or something,” said Phasma said, “If he asks.”   
He nods again, and wanders out from the room. 

*

  
She’s on her midday run when she runs into him. She doesn’t know what he does all day, has never been more than curious in passing. Now he’s sat on a fence, alone, writing something in a book. She jogs up to him, and he snaps the book closed.   
“What are you writing?”   
“Nothing,” he said, “Or, none of your business.”   
“Don’t speak to me like that,” she says, “I was just making conversation.”   
“I don’t want to converse.”   
She rolls her eyes at him.   
“I thought you were done being a brat.”   
“Don’t you have something better to do?” He says.   
“Nope,” Phasma says.   
Armitage sighs, and reaches into his coat pocket, throwing a paper bag at her. She catches it.   
“What is it?”   
“Open it and find out.”   
Hesitantly, she unwraps it, to find a cake.   
“Where’d you get this?”   
“The bakery,” Armitage said, “Captain Sentinel said you were supposed to be smart.”   
You don’t want to know what he said about you.   
“Did you steal it?”   
“Who said I steal?” Armitage said, sounding defensive, “And I didn’t. You can’t steal from the bakery, everything is behind glass.”   
“Sounds like something only a thief would say,” Phasma said, inspecting the cake.   
“It’s not fresh,” Armitage said, “The lady who owns the bakery gives the leftovers to me.”  
“Why?”   
“I don’t know.”   
Phasma looks him up and down, decides the baker probably thinks he’s a starving orphan.   
“Don’t you want it?”   
“I had two today already,” Armitage said, “And I can’t take it back there. If you’re going to eat it eat before you get there. Father doesn’t approve of sweets.”   
He jumps of the fence gracefully, catlike, and starts the trek back up the hill.   
Phasma makes the decision it’s not a nasty trick, and besides, she hasn’t had cake in years. A little poisoning might be worth it.   
The cake is filled with hundreds of little pieces of fruit, topped off with sickly, tooth-aching icing, it’s the sweetest thing she’s had since her Aunt died.   
“It’s nice,” she says, “Thank you, Armitage.”   
He glances over his shoulder and smiles shyly.   
“So, is that what you do all day,” Phasma says, “Sit on the fence, writing nothing? Don’t you have school?”   
“No,” he said.   
“What about when the General is working onboard?”   
“I go with him,” Armitage says.   
“And what do you do?”   
Armitage stops, balancing on a tree stump, turning to face her. He holds up one finger.   
“I stay out of the way,” he said, tapping the finger in a counting motion, “That’s it.”   
“Don’t you get bored?” Phasma persisted. He looked at her with an annoyingly pitying look for someone younger than her.  
“I’m always bored.”   
He jumps of the tree stump and carries on up the hill.   
“Have you ever gone to school? Had tutors?”   
“Nope,” he says, and then, reflectively, “He threatens to send me away sometimes. Usually if I disappear for a couple of cycles he’ll forget.”  
“Right,” Phasma said, “What were you writing then, if you don’t have any lessons?”   
“I wasn’t writing.”   
“I saw you.”   
“Why are you asking so many questions?” Armitage said.   
“I’m just curious. Besides, it’s my job to take an interest in everyone around General Hux.”   
He made a disgusted, choking sound.   
“You’re just like the rest,” he said, “Little toadies, all of you.”   
“And you’re a little brat.”   
“I was just drawing,” he said, “Don’t tell him.”   
“I’m not going to bother him with something like that.”   
She opens her mouth again and he stops, reaches into his pocket and throws the little book at her. This time he catches her off-guard, it hits her in the forehead, and he laughs.   
“You were going to ask what I was drawing,” he said, “You can look. I don’t care.” She leafs through dozens of pictures of what look like engine rooms and Star-destroyer plans. The drawings aren’t particularly good but they are remarkably accurate.   
“Where did you copy these from?”   
“I didn’t.” He said, “I just remembered them.”   
“Oh,” Phasma said, “Can’t you draw something interesting?”   
“This is interesting.”   
“What - ”  
“No. Now that I showed you, I get to ask you. What did you do before the trooper academy? You have a name, you must’ve been someone important.”   
“Not that important,” Phasma said, “My Aunt was. Sen - Captain Sentinel knew her. Everyone else in my family were already dead. When she died the Captain came and took me to the trooper school. My Aunt always taught me to be like a soldier, to be a fighter.”   
It was a different kind of training than the trooper academy. Less strict. She was her Aunt, after all. Everyone in her town was a fighter, no-one was exempt. There was always something someone could do to protect themselves.  
And in her village everyone shared everything, too, but not in the way things we handed out and fought over at the academy. People took turns to cook big meals, families bringing something different, merging their generations of old recipes.   
If she or one of the other kids got hurt fighting in the village, they’d be taken to a medic, put aside to rest.   
If someone was killed, everyone would mourn, and honour them.   
When a trooper was killed, it was a shame so many resources had been wasted.   
The Academy chipped away at the weakness, made the soft strong. You might be a good fighter when you train at the village, and Phasma had been a great one, even as a kid. But you’d never become a good soldier.   
Armitage stays quiet the rest of the way back, and so does Phasma. The last few bites of the cake turn sour with thoughts of the past.   
When they reach the house, he scurries around the back and Phasma goes to wash and search for Sen for their afternoon lessons. 

“He doesn’t go to school.” Phasma says, pushing the battered Datapad towards Sen. She’d been staring at a map for the last ten minutes, pinpointing all the possible angles for a sniper attack.   
“Who does?”   
“Armitage,” Phasma said, with a frown, “Who else?”   
“I know,” Sen said, “Where would he go?”   
“Or had a tutor,” Phasma said, “Doesn’t the General want him to…”   
She cuts herself short as she catches Sen circle a spot she’d considered but decided was too obvious.   
“Want him to what?”   
“I’m not sure,” Phasma said, “There’s no way a sniper could hide in there.”  
“You’d be surprised,” Sen said, “Brendol doesn’t think the kid is worth his time. Or money. He’ll ship him to some school, eventually.”   
“What do you think?” Phasma said.   
“I think what Brendol Hux does with his bastard is not worth my life,” Sen said, “97 per cent. Good, but not good enough.”   
Phasma sighs.  
“Give me the next one, then,” she said, “Can’t you…”   
“Why are you so concerned about the kid? A few days ago you wanted to put him down. Are you getting soft on me?”   
“No. I listened to you,” Phasma said, “He’s just a kid, etc., your words.”   
“I’m telling you, Phasma,” Sen said, stern now, “Stay out of it.” 

*

  
A couple days before they’re all due to disperse, with their transports arranged and Phasma’s new armour packed, she wandering the house after an evening lesson when she catches Armitage playing with a knife.   
Many things run through her head, first, the initial sense of the threat. Sure, usually a kid with a flick knife might not be a high priority danger, but he’s proven himself capable of violence. Secondly, she considers that he really is playing with it, stabbing it between his fingers with increasing speed - it’s a stupid game she’s dozens of times, and really, what kind of idiot is he?   
The thing she says, that distracts him, actually causes is previously successful attempts to fail and stab himself, is,  
“Is that Sen’s knife?”   
It clatters to the floor, he doesn’t look at his bleeding finger, just up at her with wide, watery green eyes. She doesn’t plan on telling anyone. She plans to take it from him, take it back to Sen. If Sen has notices it was gone, she’d tell him she found it, or she’d borrowed it. He’d only be slightly angry at her.   
Better, if he hasn’t noticed it’s missing, she can slip it somewhere for him to find.   
“You are a thief,” she said, with a smile to show she’s teasing as she approaches him.   
His eyes are so wide they practically popping out of his head.   
She feels the presence behind her, hopes it’s just Sen, but knows Armitage isn’t afraid of Sen the way he is his father.   
“What’s he taken now?” Hux Sr said, pushing past her.   
Sen’s eyes land on the knife on the floor and he looks confused for a second, checks his holster, mouth slightly agape.   
Phasma snatches the blade from the floor.   
Hux Sr hits Armitage across the back of the head. For about a millisecond, Phasma thinks that a quick slap might be all it will be, but she can feel the tensity radiating from Sen.   
“I’m sorry,” Armitage says, looking past his father and at Sen.   
Phasma’s mad at him for not thinking of a lie, making an excuse.   
Brendol raises his hand to hit him again, but pauses midair, and grabs Hux’s hand instead.   
“You’re going to learn your lesson this time, boy,” Hux Sr said, and starts pulling the boy into the kitchen.  
“Sir,” Sen said, “I’m not sure how necessary it is - ”   
“It’s more than necessary, Captain,” Brendol said, “He never learns. I’ve warned him what happens to thieves enough times.”   
“No,” Armitage says, trying to pull away, “No!”  
Sen gets it before Phasma does.   
Even after Brendol takes out a bread knife, it doesn’t strike her.   
“General.” Sen says, but it’s quiet enough for Brendol to ignore.   
Armitage is already crying when Brendol slams his hand, palm down on the counter. His middle finger is still bleeding from Sen’s knife.   
“Father, please, don’t,” He was begging, “I won’t do it again, I promise, ever again,”   
Phasma’s leg twitches forward, Sen kicks her in the foot.   
She glowers at him, he simply shakes his head.   
“Father,” He moves his hand out the way.   
“You can stop whining, put your hand on the counter and take your punishment quickly and like a man,” Brendol hisses, “Or you can carry on crying, making it harder on yourself, making it slower, more painful.”  
Armitage carries on sobbing, but steadies his hand on the counter.  
She wants to stop it from happening, knows that she should, that she would, if it were any other situation.   
My life is not worth Armitage Hux’s hand, Phasma decides.   
There’s a part of her that wants to close her eyes as the General brings the knife down, but she forces them to stay open, she doesn’t even blink. Sen’s eyes flicker to floor, back up to the scene in front of him, back down to the floor, like he can’t make up his mind of what he’s going to do.  
Armitage shouts as the serrated edge of the knife slices through the back of his wrist, slitting his skin open. Blood pools out.   
Brendol doesn’t make a second cutting motion, pulls it away, places the knife calmly to one side.   
Armitage folds in on himself, still crying on the floor.   
Brendol kicks at him.   
“Get out of my sight,” he says, “You’re weak, Armitage,”  
Phasma can’t help but agree with him, when Armitage gets up shakily, face wet with blood and tears and snot, paler than ever except for the raw red-rimmed eyes.   
Phasma breathes out, Hux Sr nods at her and Sen, and then leaves. As the door closes, they hear him start to yell once more: Armitage had apparently vomited outside the door.   
“I’m going to bed,” Phasma says, pauses by the door, “Would he have done it?”   
“It’s not the first time the kid’s been caught stealing,” Sen says, “He has to learn somehow.” 

*

When they leave, a few days later, Sen nodding goodbye and leaving on the shuttle they had came in, and Phasma leading General Hux and his son into the newly arrived craft.   
It’s bigger, nicer than most of the ones she’d been in.   
She hadn’t seen Armitage since that night, no-one had. Making himself invisible seemed pretty much the only thing he was good at.   
He had a hastily tied bandage around his wrist, poking out from under his sleeve. He’d obviously tied it himself. Badly.   
She didn’t offer to retie it, couldn’t in earshot of Brendol.   
As they stepped on, all the other flight crew greeted Brendol with deferential salutes, were polite but cautious of her. She always preferred the way people treated her when she wore armour: with caution, with more respect.   
They ignored Armitage entirely, who made himself scarce and disappeared the second he stepped aboard, not even reappearing for take-off.   
Hux Sr was not concerned, so neither was she. 

*

Years later, it’s Armitage that comes to her about killing his father. They’d joked about it for years, in private conversations, stolen over the years.   
All the things she’d watched Hux Sr do to him over the years go mostly unmentioned. Sometimes she considers that he might hold it against her.  
She’s not one for paranoia, she leaves that for Armitage, but once or twice she’s had a suspicion that he’s kept hold of her for so long, let her come up the ranks with him for so long, for some elaborate revenge scheme that she knows he’s capable of.   
“You weren’t much more than a child yourself,” he’d said once, without much feeling, the only time she’d brought up her residual guilt.   
She doesn’t know what Brendol does to make Armitage finally snap and decide that he had to kill him.   
“You want me to do it?” She’d said.   
He shook his head.   
“No,” Armitage said, “Yes. If I can’t do it. I want you to come with me. If I don’t go it…if I can’t go through with it. Then you kill him.”   
She nods.   
“It’ll be a pleasure to watch him die, either way,” Phasma said, with a smile. He grimaces in response, biting at the inside of his lips and cheeks in the way she knows he thinks is subtle.   
“How are you going to do it?” Phasma said.   
“I haven’t decided,” Armitage said, “Something slow and painful.”   
“Don’t be stupid with it,” Phasma said, “You don’t want it to be traced back to you.”   
“Everyone who matters would think it was me even it wasn’t,” Armitage said, “Wouldn’t you? If we never had this conversation, and he was announced dead tomorrow, wouldn’t you think it was me?”   
“Probably,” she said, because she definitely would, “Doesn’t meant you should be reckless.”   
“I’m never reckless,” he said, and she laughed, because they had known each too long for her to believe the artifice he’d built for himself, though he might have convinced almost everyone else and even himself that he was as proper an Imperial legacy as they came.   
There were still people who were not convinced of his legitimacy or usefulness as an officer, his own father included, and Phasma knew it was the beginning now, of eradicating that particular brand of dissent. 


	7. Suited Connectors

“You can stay here,”   
“What?” Poe said. He’d been just about falling asleep when Hux spoke.   
“When I’m gone,” Hux said, “I’ve given you authorisation to enter when I’m not here.”   
“What?”   
“You said you preferred this bed to your own,” Hux said, “If you’d like to, you can sleep here in.”   
“Oh.” Poe said, “Thank you.”  
Hux’s bed was greatly preferable to his, and it was a thoughtful gesture, not exactly typical of Hux. This meant, either that Hux trusted him not to snoop, or, more likely, that there was nothing in his quarters that he could discover and pass on to the Resistance.   
“Are you sure?”  
“Yes,” Hux said, “It’s not a proposal. Just clean up after yourself.”   
They’d been led in Hux’s bed together for a couple of hours after a brief tryst. Hux had tried to slip off to shower after he’d given Poe a blow job. Poe had stopped him from leaving by slipping his hands down Hux’s pants, to which Hux had briefly protested, but had quickly retracted his complaints when Poe stopped.   
Then Hux really did insist on showering before settling back into the (clean) bed with Poe, dressed in-standard issue work-out clothes, which Poe supposed was as close as Hux got to casual wear.   
“You know, at this rate, you’ll never be able to get rid of me,” Poe said.   
“I don’t much want to be rid of you,” Hux said.   
“Which is why you’re disappearing,” Poe said, smiling as he imagined the sort of face Hux was pulling.   
“I’m not disappearing,” Hux said, “I’d stay if I could.”   
“I thought you would have liked this sort of thing.”   
“I don’t like going planet-side at all,” Hux said, “Especially not grim, two-sun dust-buckets.”   
“Most people prefer planet-side,” Poe said, “I mean, air that’s not recycled. Weather. New people every day.”   
“Dirt, disease,” Hux said, “New people every day.” 

* * * 

The first time Poe went to Hux’s rooms without him there, he really did have a look around for useful information.   
Just because he actually liked Hux didn’t meant he had forgotten what his mission really was. It just happened he had a self-directed sub-mission.   
He still felt like a rotten sneak, but it wasn’t to be helped. Steering clear of the plant, he searched Hux’s desk. Of course Hux had taken his Datapad, and though the idea that Poe could get past anything owned by someone as technology-focussed as Hux was laughable at best, he couldn’t help but feel a little disappointed.   
Searching Hux’s bedroom just revealed several identical uniforms hanging in the closet, and similarly standard-issue underwear and athletic-wear in the drawers.   
None of this surprised Poe, exactly, but he had hoped to find something more intriguing. In the very least, something kinky.   
Other than the slightly sinister plant, Hux didn’t even seem to own anything.   
It seemed a vaguely personal choice: not that anyone in the Order had much freedom, but surely a General with quarters like these would have something.   
He couldn’t really imagine what he thought Hux might have. Some old Imperial relics? Some ancient technology?   
Poe’s room at his Dad’s place was full of clutter. Regularly, his dad would contact him with a ‘I swear on all the stars in the universe, if you don’t collect this crap I’ll throw it all out,’ but never actually followed through with the threat.   
He had spaceship models and pretend blasters, several paper-books, old favourites of his parents, clothes that he’d held onto for a decade or more too long, a collection of soft animals from his childhood, a result of his home’s no-pets rule.   
His room on the Resistance base wasn’t as cluttered, but he had the hand-made patchwork quilt his great-great-grandfather had made, a few pictures, a drawing an orphan who lived on base had given him. He had BB-8.   
Sitting alone on Hux’s bed was the first time he felt really desperate to go home. Go back to normal.   
He wouldn’t give up earlier, never had, never would, but he wanted to.   
* *   
Poe acts normal, pretends that it’s not at all weird, what he’s doing. There’s no-one who pays close enough attention to him that they notice instead of returning to his closet he takes a right and goes to Hux’s quarters, which are the First Order’s idea of luxury.   
Only Habea seemed to really suspect him, and even he simply thought there was just a little glitch in Poe’s programming.   
Never would he have thought he’d be in a situation where Hux was the only person he could speak to semi-honestly (and he did censor himself around Hux, tried not to push too far, but far enough to get a gage on exactly how unlikely he’d be to turn around and do the right the thing).   
He tries to push some of the others, the guys he likes - Imelda, a young woman whose twin sister died in training. She was ambitious but held some deep contempt if not with the whole Order, then in the very least the way it trained officers. She’d be the easiest to bring in, aside from Cuth.   
He liked Captain Lyra, Mitaka was fine - there’s no way either of them would defect unless Hux did. Apus, a fairly low-ranking enlisted man wouldn’t take long to convince, but he’d have to feel for that one a bit more. This was never the mission, bringing people back with him.   
The more he talks with them, the more he shares practically every waking hour with them, the more he convinces himself that this the best option.   
He has to help someone, in the very least, even if it’s only one person. 

**  
Poe’s asleep in Hux’s bed when he comes back. There’s a flitting, strange feeling of being caught as something, despite it being on Hux’s invitation that he’s there.   
Hux doesn’t seem at all surprised to see him there, when Poe shuffles, half-asleep out of the bedroom.   
“Nice trip?” Poe said, yawning. Hux gave him a cold look.   
“Awful, thank you,” Hux said, with a false brightness, “How have things been here?”   
“I’m sure you know,” Poe said, “You’ve been messaging Mitaka every hour.”   
Hux rose an eyebrow.   
“How do you know that?”   
“The face he pulls when he hears from you,” Poe said.   
“Poor Mitaka,” Hux said, taking off his hat and sitting down at his desk, “Still, I rather gather he tells me whatever it is he thinks I want to hear.”   
Poe moves closer to him, thinks about straddling his lap, sucking at the exposed skin of his neck, but leans against the desk instead.   
“Things are boring without you,” Poe said, truthfully, “There’s no-one I’d rather smoke with.”   
“I’m always rather disappointed to hear how well things go without me,” Hux said, “It’s horribly selfish of me, isn’t it? I don’t want some great tragedy to occur, but something dramatic enough that people might notice I’m gone.”   
“I noticed you were gone,” Poe said, and Hux rolled his eyes in response.   
“I should hope so,” he said.   
“Are you coming to bed?” Poe said, and, not at all unexpectedly, Hux shook his head.   
“I have a lot of work to catch up on,” Hux said, he stood and went over to his bag to pull out his Datapad, and stopped, hand hovering, “I’ve got a present for you, actually.”   
Poe laughed.   
“A present?”   
“It’s nothing very exciting,” Hux said, “So don’t look at me like that.”   
He threw a small, package at Poe. It was wrapped in soft purple tissue-paper.   
“Did you wrap it?”   
Hux scowled at him, “No, it came like that.”   
Poe unwrapped it, slightly giddy and fingers stumbling about the thin paper with sleepiness.   
Hux ignored him, taking out several large packets of cigarettes and emptying the rest of his bag down the laundry chute.   
It was a tin of hot chocolate, with a side of chocolate truffles.   
“Hux,” Poe said, “Thank you.”   
“It’s nothing special,” said Hux, “I just remembered what you said when I saw them.”  
Poe took a step closer to Hux, thought about hugging him.   
“That’s sweet,” said Poe.   
“No, it isn’t.” Hux said.   
His face pinked as he went over to his desk, tapping at his Datapad.   
“Can I make some now?” Poe said, grinning back at him.   
“Do what you like,” said Hux.   
“Do you want some?”   
“No, definitely not.” Hux said, “I’ll have tea.”   
Poe followed the instructions on the packet for the tea, making the hot chocolate instinctively, before going over to join Hux at his desk.   
“Move up,” he said, and pushed next to Hux, who slide obliging across the seat, “When did you have time to get this?”  
“I slipped out for a couple of hours in the evening,” Hux said, “I certainly didn’t miss anything important. I was getting cigarettes.”   
Poe nudged him in the ribs.   
“Did you steal it?”   
“I don’t steal from little old men trying to make a living on a market stall,” Hux said, but he was smirking, “Would you give it back if I had?”   
Poe considered it, decided it would be too much of luxury to deny himself.   
“No,” said Poe “You have a strange moral compass,”   
Hux ignored him, sliding through the messages on his Datapad so quickly he couldn’t be reading anything.   
Poe held out his hot chocolate in front of Hux’s face.   
“Try this.”  
Hux gave him a withering look, but sipped it obediently.   
“Too sweet,” Hux said, wiping his mouth and drinking his tea.   
“No such thing.” Poe said, “You’ll be saying I’m too sweet, next.”   
Hux snorted.   
“That is about as likely as…” Hux said, but then trailed off, staring down at his Datapad, Poe moved to look over his shoulder, but Hux clicked it off.   
“What?” Poe said.   
“Nothing, I just had a thought,” Hux said, “I’m tired. Do you want to go to bed?”   
“Never thought you’d say that.”   
“Yes, there’s something about hours and hours of sitting in a badly lit room with men who confuse being older than me with knowing more than me that makes me incredibly tired.”   
Poe mulled over his question for a few seconds, trying to think of the best why to ask the question that had been playing on his mind.   
“What do you want, Hux?”   
Hux stretched in a way that made his back click in an unholy fashion, smirked when Poe pulled a face at the sound.   
“What do you mean?” He said.   
“I mean,” Poe said, “There’s always going to be men like that. It’s the nature of hierarchy.”   
“Not necessarily,” Hux said, “Most of them have ten years left in them, speaking generously.”   
“Then it’ll be Kylo Ren,” Poe said.   
Hux glared at him sideways and began peeling of his gloves.   
“Will it?” He said, quietly.   
“You don’t like the other Generals,” said Poe, “You don’t like the Supreme Leader, you don’t like Kylo Ren. What do you want, then?”   
“You know the answer to that question,” Hux said, “Everyone knows. I want the First Order.”   
Poe tried to stand up casually.   
“You thought maybe I wasn’t the arrogant, insatiable, power-hungry monster everyone makes me out to be?”   
“Well, plenty of the other rumours turned out to be untrue.”   
“Not this one I’m afraid,” Hux said, “I understand why you’d be disappointed.”   
“Do you?” Poe said, because Hux didn’t know the half of it.   
“I’m going to bed,” Hux said, “Are you coming?”  
There was a twisting in Poe’s stomach. Or he felt as though his insides were being torn in half. He wished he could press pause, take a few days to make this decision, to decide whether he could really be in love with someone who’s primary concern in life lay so at odds with his own.   
Not that he was in love, but he could be.   
“Course I am,” Poe said, finishing his hot chocolate.   
“I just mean to sleep,” Hux said, “So we’re clear?”   
“Crystal clear, General,” Poe said.   
He’d think more about the morals of at all after he’d had a sleep. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it's a little shorter than usual, but thank you for any kudos and the very kind comments!


	8. Overdrawn

Armitage hates weather. Hates sun and wind and rain. The cold was generally preferable to the heat. Hates being planet-side, full stop. He almost never takes his shore leave. Almost never takes leave of any kind, unless he’s terribly sick, which had only happened a handful of times.   
Most of all he hates stuffy meeting rooms, unclean and smelling of whatever meeting was going on in there last. The meeting would be better happening on the Finalizer, or even some other ship, but he suspects that that wouldn’t inconvenience him throughly enough.   
The room has poor lighting that makes it difficult to concentrate, and everything about the meeting seems designed to annoy him, specifically.   
He can’t bring himself quite to listen attentively, not long lists of numbers and statistics and petty plans that are all going to be worthless when his project is completed, and he wonders, vaguely, how any of them can even care.   
He was rapidly aware of an incoming migraine, was sure it was related to an atmospheric pressure he wasn’t used to. General Pryde kept glancing at him, and so he made and effort to keep his hands on the table in front of him, and not pinch the bridge of his nose.   
He slips out as soon as he’s given the opportunity, hanging back only so long as to not be the first out of the room.   
He decides to go and buy more cigarettes before he goes back to his room.   
“General Hux,” said Pryde, calling from the down the hall.   
Briefly he considers ignoring Pryde, but stops and turns at the risk of being followed, hanging about near the entrance to the lobby.   
“General Pryde,” he said, “Is there anything I can do for you?”   
“I was just hoping for a quick word,” Pryde said, “I’m not interrupting anything, am I? Where are you going?”   
Hux held up a cigarette in explanation.   
“Still smoking? You know it’s an awful habit,” said Pryde.   
“So I have been told,” Hux said, “Many times.”   
“Well, I won’t keep you,” Pryde said, “This will only take a few minutes.”   
“Of course,” Hux said.   
Pryde leads him into the same meeting room he’d just escaped from, and he sits down as casually as he can make himself.   
“I’ll get right to the point, shall I?”   
“Please do,” Hux said, without even his usual strained politeness. “I never thought you were as stupid as your father made out,” Pryde said, “Neither have I thought that you were smart as Sloane believed. But you’ve convinced the Supreme Leader that you’re of some worth.”  
“I’m sure you have some point to this?”   
“Your projects are not going well,” Pryde said, “There’s little faith in you, even amongst your own ranks.”   
“You’ve been speaking to Habea, I presume.”   
“You should learn to watch your back, Armitage. You have more enemies than friends,” said Pryde,   
Hux smiled tightly.   
“Thank you for your concern,” Hux said, “Or is it more of a threat?”  
“Baseless threats has always been more your thing,” Pryde said, “I - ”  
“Starkiller is nearly finished,” Hux said, “And it will be successful. The Supreme Leader, as you’ve already acknowledged, has faith in me. Do you really doubt the The Supreme Leader so throughly?”   
“Of course not, Armitage, I doubt you.”   
“I was already quite aware of that,” Hux said, “Is there anything else?”   
He stood, lingered for a moment by the door, when Pryde failed to answer him immediately he made to leave.   
“You don’t want to outlive your worth.” Pryde said, after him, and wasn’t that the truth. 

* *

Armitage had been trying all evening to arrange a meeting with Kylo Ren, who had requested one and then promptly disappeared, and something more official with Phasma. In all honesty, he’d have better luck herding loth-cats.   
Grus was beside him, in his bed, the covers pulled up to his waist. He wants to ask him something. He keeps looking up at him, big brown eyes, wide and testing, and then glancing away when Hux looks back.   
For a while, he tries to ignore him,   
“What is it?” He asks, eventually, when Grus shoots him another look like a whipped puppy.   
“What do you mean?”   
“What do you want?” Hux said, putting his Datapad down.  
“I need to take leave,” Grus said, “It’s pretty short notice.”  
“When?”  
“Next week. I’ve been meaning to bring it up for a while, but it never felt appropriate.”   
“Why not bring up with Captain Lyra? You’re her responsibility, as far as all that goes.”   
“I’m cutting out the middle-man,” Grus said, “She’d just have to confirm with you, anyway, wouldn’t she?”   
“Mitaka usually deals with that sort of thing,” Hux said, and felt himself frowning. He tried to smooth out his face, “Why do you want leave so suddenly?”   
“You’ll think it’s stupid.”   
“I’m certainly not going to grant you short-notice leave if you don’t give me a good reason,” Hux said.   
“It’s the anniversary of the death of one of my old flight-mates,” Grus said, “I wanted to go near where it happened and just…I don’t know.”   
“You’re not a great liar,” said Hux.   
Grus’s eyebrows knitted together.   
“That’s because I’m not lying,” Grus said, “I need to…”  
Hux rolled his eyes.   
“I’ll grant the leave,” Hux said, “You’re still full of shit.”   
Grus let out a hysterical laugh.  
“Why the change of heart?”   
“Why do you care that I’ve had a change of heart when you’re getting what you want? It’s not fair of me to demand to know your reasons of taking leave that you’re entitled to. I wouldn’t ask anyone else.”  
Armitage was aware of the moderately aggressive tone to his voice, did little to try and soften it. But Grus was smiling again, in a flirtatiously sly way.   
He sometimes seemed to live for getting Hux wound up.   
“What do you think I’m doing?”   
“Meeting up with some pretty younger lover of yours?” Hux said, half-serious.   
“Technically, you’re my pretty younger lover.” Grus said.   
“I doubt that,” Hux said, “Only by a year.”   
Grus frowned, “Three years.”   
“No,” Hux said, “One standard year.”   
Grus licked at his lip, and locked up at Hux through his long, dark eyelashes.   
“You’re right,” Grus said, “Two years my time, I guess.”   
“You said three.”   
“I rounded up,” Grus said with a shrug that Hux didn’t wholly buy as casual.   
Hux swung his legs over the side of the bed and sat on the edge, his back to Grus as he typed out a quick message. When he stood and turned back to Grus, he was watching him closely, like he was waiting for Hux to say or do something. Fleetingly, Hux wished he was a mind-reader and do or say whatever it was that Grus was expecting.   
“I have to get back to work,” Hux said, “I’ve still got plenty of catching up to do.”   
Grus grabbed his hand.   
“You know, you could always take leave with me,” Grus said, “If it’ll prove to you I’m not sleeping around. I’m not that kinda guy.”   
“You look like that - no, never mind. I couldn’t possibly take the leave, and certainly not at the same time as you.”  
“Why not?” Grus said, smiling too broadly. He shifts and sits up, the sheets falling below his waist, Hux ignored the fleeting and desperate attraction. He wanted to allow himself to get back into bed, wrap his arms around Grus’s waist and lay there forever, or maybe longer.  
“I’m not going to justify that with an answer,” Hux said, “I’ve signed off on your leave.”  
“Already?”   
“Already. You can arrange the rest with Captain Lyra yourself. I’m not the help.”   
“Thank you, Hux,” Grus said.   
“You’ve accrued a significant amount of leave,” Hux said, “And you’re hardly my most talented navigator.”  
“You really know how to make a guy feel special,” Grus said, releasing his hand and exposing it to the chill of the air.   
“Hm, I hope you treat your secret lovers better than I treat mine,” said Hux.   
Grus gave him the wounded-puppy look again.   
“I told you, I don’t have any lovers,” Grus said, “Other lovers.”   
Hux picked his jacket up from where he’d left it draped over the armchair and redressed.   
“I’ll believe you, just on that one,” Hux said.   
He still wasn’t quite convinced by the dead-friend story. Perhaps it was a dead lover? Visit a family member he didn’t want the Order to know about?   
He kicked the creeping thoughts of paranoia to the side and sat to put his boots on. Grus sat up more fully in bed and kicked the covers down.   
“You know I like you,” Grus said, “Like, a lot.”   
“There’s no accounting for taste,” Hux said, “You could have almost anyone on this ship.”   
“Only almost?” Grus said, getting out of the bed.   
“Where are you going?”   
“I think if you’re just going to work, I’ll go for a workout,” Grus said, “Unless you have any objections?”   
Against his desires, Hux shook his head and left Grus to dress as he goes and sits at his desk. He wasn’t going to make Grus hang about, even if liked the company.  
Despite enjoying having him about, he was a distraction.   
Grus spent a few seconds lurking near the door, Hux tried to ignore him, keeping his eyes fixed on his desk.   
“What is it now?” Hux said.   
“Nothing,” said Grus, “Make sure you get some sleep.”   
“I will,” Hux lied, “Aren’t you coming back?”   
He tried to keep his tone balanced and casual as he slowly span the chair about to look at Grus. His uniform was creased and his curls were ruffled. He bit his tongue rather than point this out.   
“Sure I am,” Grus said, “I’ll be back in an hour. Think I’m ever going back to sleeping in that crappy bed?”  
“What if I lock you out?”   
“Not gonna work,” Grus said, “You can’t keep me out, it’s as much my bed as it is yours now. If not more, because I actually appreciate it.”  
“Weren’t you going somewhere?”   
“You’ll miss me when I’m gone,” Grus said.   
Hux rolled his eyes, and turned back to his desk, listened for the hum of the doors closing behind Grus, and went back to staring down at his Datapad, vague feelings of guilt about Grus being driven out pushed aside.   
Since his revelation the night he’d returned it had been almost all he could think about, to the point of handing over some other duties off to one or more subordinates. That was unusual for him. Ren had noticed, had made a passing comment about handling, in same tone as Pryde had. Or, he would have, if he didn’t say everything in that irksome, distorted monotone.   
If Ren noticed, he surely would’ve passed on his suspicions to the Supreme Leader. But Snoke knew better than anyone how important Starkiller was. It had to take precedence over everything else, including petty squabbles and skirmishes with the Republic. When it was completed, there’d be not skirmishes to speak off, not in the way there had been the last few decades, with the Republic, too pigheaded and determined to uphold their failed regime to fold, and too cowardly to properly fight back with firepower Hux knew they were capable of. The Resistance showed the willing to fight, but lacked the resources, reduced to inconsistent little attacks.   
For the war to end, it would have to begin in earnest, and Starkiller would see to that.


	9. Bluff

Poe arrived on the rendezvous planet after sundown, around about the time that three of the planet’s five moons were lining up, and the pollution from the mining-dust nearby, which was only visible in the dark, lit up the sky in a dusky pink.   
He was late. Not massively, but he missed his check-in and was late to his meeting, something he had pretty explicitly been warned about before he’d even left.   
He walks into the crowded bar of the hotel, and looks around for a familiar face. It’s a bustling place, crawling with large groups of people laughing and even more people sat in darkened sections with their heads down, clearly trying to drink away the memory of whatever shit the galaxy has thrown a him.   
“Poe Dameron,” a voice behind him, he recognises it, smiles and turns.   
“Rose Tico,” He said, “What a pleasure,”  
He’d not known her for long, only a couple of months before he’d left for the mission.   
“I was starting to worry you wouldn’t show up,” Rose said, “Three months is a long time to be in the dark. Literally and figuratively.”  
“Have I missed much?”   
“Nothing all that interesting,” Rose said, “Besides, I think it’s you who is supposed to be passing on the information.”  
“Right, let’s go sit down,” Poe said, “I can’t say I’ve got much. For some reason people aren’t handing files of top-secret plans to the new guy.”  
“Don’t tell me I’ve made the trip for nothing,” said Rose, as they took seats at the bar.   
“Didn’t say that,” Poe said, “You were told not to give me any updates, weren’t you?”   
Rose ignored the question, ordered a pair of fuchsia drinks that gave off occasional orange sparks.   
“I’ve been told not to tell you anything I wouldn’t tell a stranger,” Rose said frowning, “Sorry.”   
“Can you tell me how BB-8 is?”   
The corners of Rose’s mouth twitched, and she looked more relaxed.   
“He misses you,” Rose said, “But he’s got plenty to do. I wish I could say BB has been staying completely out of trouble, but you know how he is.”  
Poe felt himself relax in a way he didn’t realise he needed to.   
“Good,” Poe said, “You’ll tell him I’ll be back soon, right?”   
Rose nodded, took a sip of the dangerous looking drink, and so Poe decided to copy. The sparks, surprisingly, did not set fire to his eyebrows.  
“So, what have you got for us?”   
Poe lists of everything he has, and Rose mostly looks unimpressed.   
“When is this knock-off Death Star supposed to be ready?” Rose said, and Poe has to shrug.  
“To-morrow,” Poe said, “Next year. I overheard delays being reported from the base.”   
“And how’re you coping? You’re not bored out your mind?”   
“Only a little,” Poe said, “Food is crap. Navigation sends me to sleep.”  
“We can pull you out,” Rose said, “Cut it short. You can come home with me.”   
“I dunno,” Poe said, “I think there’s a few reasons worth carrying on.”   
“It’s risky, Poe,” said Rose, “Riskier the longer you stay there.”   
“Risk is my middle name,” Poe said.   
“The information you’ve got is good,” Rose said, “Well, good enough to make the three months worth it.”   
“Then think what I can get with another three months,” Poe said, gesturing for the delivery of another drink.   
Rose titled her head to one side, twisted smirk on her face.  
“You’re having sex with someone, aren’t you?”   
“What?” Poe said, “No. That would be fraternising with the enemy.”   
Rose narrowed her eyes.   
“You’re a really bad liar,” Rose said, “I can’t believe they’d send you undercover.”  
Poe shrugged, picked up his fresh drink.  
“I’m not lying,” Poe said.   
“Man, woman, other?”   
“No-one,” Poe said, taking a long sip.   
“I’m not going to tell anyone, Poe,” Rose said, “Even if I think it’s absolutely crazy that you’d sleep with someone in the First Order.”  
“He’s not a bad person,” said Poe, and then considered it, “Not a totally bad person, anyway. What else was I supposed to do? Not interact with anyone?”   
“There’s interacting with them and theres sleeping with them,” Rose said, “You want to go back for him, don’t you?”   
She leaned back on the stool and folding her arms across herself in a self-satisfied way.   
“Maybe,” Poe said, “When it comes down to it, Rose, the Resistance comes first.”   
Rose nodded.   
“I know it does,” Rose said, “Which is why you have my word than no-one will know about it except us.”  
Poe relaxed, wondered how Rose would react if she found out that it was General Hux he was sleeping with, and some random low-rank piece of canon fodder.   
“But if I think for a second that you’re going to betray us, I’ll blast you between the eyes.”   
“Thanks,” Poe said, “Sounds great.” 

***

The hotel bed is crappy, and without any more information to share, Poe cuts his trip short and hitches a ride on some other officer’s shuttle. The planet’s got a bit of a reputation for sex work, so it’s not completely uncommon to find soldiers visiting for short periods of time, and Poe wonders if that was supposed to be his official cover story, detailed in the sections of his fake biography that he forgot to finish reading.   
There’s a strange desire when he docks back at the Finalizer to go to the bridge, to see how the shift he’s supposed to be on is going to him, and Poe even catches himself thinking of them as his team, and immediately starts feeling guilty about how quickly he could replace his actual, real, team in his head with the literal people they were supposed to be fighting.   
He decides he’d rather everyone not know he was there, given the likelihood that he’d get dragged into doing work, and feeling too drained from the journey to want to socialise, which was an uncommon but not entirely unfamiliar to him. He usually felt this way after a long mission, or after losing a close comrade, not after a quick trip to visit a friend.   
He heads for Hux’s quarters, having given up the ghost of even acting like he had any reason to go his own room about a week prior. If he was stuck in a conversation with someone, he’d let them walk with to his room, and then he’d stand inside for a couple of seconds and walk back out as soon as they were far enough away for him to do so.   
And there was no way he was going to use a communal shower when he could use Hux’s private one, he wasn’t a masochist, after all.   
If Hux is surprised to find him sitting at his desk when he finishes his own shift, he doesn’t show it.  
“You’re back,” said Hux, lips twitching, “I thought you wouldn’t be for another day.”  
“Yeah,” Poe said, “I didn’t need the extra day.”   
“You didn’t need the extra day to mourn your fake dead friend?” Hux said, brushing past him.   
“Not fake,” Poe said, with as much assurance as he could stuff in his voice, “Did you miss me?”  
“Not particularly,” Hux said, shrugging off his overcoat, “I got a lot more work done. And without you around productivity on your shift increased by eight per cent.”  
“Well, I guess my replacement must be really talented.”  
“I didn’t put a replacement on there,” Hux said.   
“Well,” Poe said, “I never said I was good navigator, did I?”   
“I suppose not,” Hux said, “And you do have other talents.”   
“Glad you recognise them,” Poe said.   
Hux looks back down at his Datapad. Poe forces out a loud sigh.   
“What?”   
“What’s the longest you’ve been without looking at that thing?”  
Hux rolls his eyes.   
“Who are you harassing?”   
“I’m just ensuring that - ”  
“Don’t you ever get bored of telling people what to do?” Poe said, stepping towards Hux, who steps away once more to place his Datapad on the desk.   
“Not really,” Hux said, sinking into the seat, he stays facing Poe, his back to the Datapad, “Why?”  
“It might be relaxing,” said Poe, with a shrug, “To just pretend you’re a normal person for a bit.”   
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Hux said, frowning up at him.   
“I didn’t mean you weren’t normal,” said Poe, though that wasn’t an entirely accurate statement, “I meant just, not being a General.”   
“I don’t like to relax.”   
“C’mon,” Poe said, “That’s gotta be bullshit.”   
He reached out to touch Hux’s hair playfully, but Hux’s grabs his wrist before he gets near, his gloved hand holding Poe firmly at a distance.   
“Do you really think so?” He said, and releases his grip.   
“Maybe not,” Poe said, “But it wouldn’t kill you.”   
“Maybe not. What do you recommend?”   
“Getting an early night for a start.” 

***

Sleeping, it turned out, was in neither of their minds, and Poe decides that Hux definitely missed him. Poe had to do his part at convincing Hux he hadn’t been off visiting a secret lover, and thinks he may have succeeded.   
He also triumphed in convincing Hux in leaving their clothes on the floor instead of folding them neatly and delaying the passion (he did, twice, catch Hux staring contemptuously at the floor, when by all rights, he should have been staring deep into Poe’s eyes).   
He’s successful a third time in stopping Hux from leaping out of bed and into the shower, and pins him down by placing his head heavily on Hux’s chest (there is still no kissing, which Poe decides to count as a work-in-progress, not a total failure).   
“Is that your heart fluttering at the sight of me?” Poe said, after spending too long in the quiet.  
Hux makes a derisive sound.   
“No,” He said, “You do like to flatter yourself, don’t you? It’s always arrhythmic. I thought you’d figured that out my snooping through my medication?”   
“Is it from all those stims?”   
“I’ve always had it,” Hux said, “Genetic. Another way to disappoint my father.”   
Poe pushes his ear closer into Hux’s chest.   
“You never mentioned,” Poe said.   
“It’s not information I want getting around.”   
“Isn’t it dangerous? Those stims you take must make it dangerous.”   
Hux sat up, letting Poe’s head fall.   
“You’re worse than the bloody medics,” Hux said, “I’ve quite endured this lecture enough times.”  
“Still,” Poe objected, “You - why do you think I was snooping through your things?”  
“Because that’s what I would do,” Hux said, “The medication stabilises it. I’ll be quite alright, for now.”  
It’s Poe’s turn to sit bolt alright.   
“For now?”   
“There’s no need to be dramatic. My father was always in regrettably perfect health, so it’s probably from my mother’s side, and I don’t know how long she lived. But the condition usually results in a reduced life-span.”  
“How reduced?”   
“I probably have twenty or thirty years left,” said Hux, “I’m technically middle-aged. Don’t look at me like that.”   
“I’m not looking at you like anything,” Poe said, “You’ve never really mentioned your mother before.”   
“She was nobody, just a kitchen whore,” Hux said, losing whatever playful softness his voice had had a few minutes before.   
“You shouldn’t speak about your own mother like that,” said Poe, “Or anybody.”   
Hux gave him in an ugly look, and gets off the bed, picking up the clothes from the floor.   
“I’m going for a cigarette,” he said, “Are you coming?”   
“That’s not good for your heart,” said Poe, and Hux actually smiled back at him.   
“Nor yours,” Hux said.   
“Fair point,” Poe said, “But no, I’ll stay here. Unless you’ve got any objections?”   
“I think it’s far too late for me to have any objections about the things you do,” Hux said, “My standards in terms of discipline have fallen considerably.”   
Hux looks about ready to leave before he sighs, and sits back down on the bed.  
“How did your trip go?” Hux said.   
“Fine,” Poe said, “Thanks for asking.”   
“You’ve got nothing else to tell me? No other trips planned?”   
“No. Nothing to report, General," he said, with a false brightness that he hated to hear in himself.   
Hux stood and started to leave, turning one last time, he said,   
“Don’t do anything stupid.”   
“When?” Poe said, wondering what trouble Hux thought Poe could get himself into within the five. minutes it took him to smoke.   
“Just keep it in mind.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who has read/commented/left kudos so far! I really appreciate it.   
> Sorry for the slight delay in posting, I got distracted with working on the sequel rather than re-reading/editing this chapter, because I'm terrible.


	10. Snake Eyes

Hux is smarter than the person who buried Grus’s original files. They did a good job, and the whole damn system would need an update, but once he’d decided what he was looking for, the changes were easy to find.  
In Hux’s own defence, a real Xera Grus technically existed. Did exist, at least. The back-up of the file - which had not been edited (and he hoped whoever within the Resistance failed to do that would be punished appropriately for their heinously stupid mistake) - revealed that he’d decided a couple of months before the imposter arrived.   
There was an intense anger when he’d found out, and he briefly understood Kylo Ren’s tantrums. He was much neater with his anger than Ren, and only ended up drawing his own blood when he bit down too hard on his lip to stop himself from screaming.   
He was angrier still when it dawned on him how bad of a spy the imposter actually was, and how fucking stupid he’d been to write off his dissent as jokes and a strong personality.  
Then the hot fury started to freeze over. He picked up the (thankfully unharmed, for all he wanted to throw it) Datapad and loaded the programme that would allow him to search the Holonet unrestricted.   
The Resistance, by virtue being of rather backwards, badly-funded bottom-dwellers did not exactly keep extensive personnel files in the way the First Order did.   
Their coding system, however, was not up-to-date and it was with minimal effort that he was able to set up his Datapad to write-and-copy incoming and outgoing messages to a variety of channels, a program which he’d designed himself and could leave running in background whilst he went about his day (not that he could think about much else).   
The Resistance were better organised than he’d prefer to give them credit for. They’d not used to the dodgy messaging system to discuss anything important, he’d checked that before. But he’d never been looking for something so precise. The planet that faux-Grus’s transport shuttle had docked on came up only a handful of times, mostly in lewd, jovial conversations. The most recent was for a drop-off and pick up, one that stupidly contained the name for the person that was being met.  
He’d heard the name Poe Dameron before. A talented pilot, as far as any of the Resistance lot went.  
Now, there was simply the question of what to do with him.   
He’d quite planned to intercept him when he docked after his leave. But he’d come back early, and the sight of him had twisted Hux’s stomach into a thousand knots and somehow they had ended up back in bed, fucking and, worse of all, talking.  
The way Dameron looked at him, with such convincing care made him want to talk, about things he never even spoke to Phasma about, and she knew more than anyone (more than he wanted her to know, even).  
He’d stalked off the refresher to smoke and reconsider his initial plans. He had three cigs. He hoped Dameron would’ve been gone when he’d gotten back.   
He didn’t explicitly warn him. He wouldn’t let himself do that, and he certainly wouldn’t let himself get caught doing that, but if Dameron were to take his advice to be a threat and abscond in a TIE fighter then it’d have to be a write-off. No-one knew about their relationship, so who could blame him for not sussing a spy he’d barely exchanged ten words with?   
But Dameron was still there when he got back, bare-chested and sleepy-eyed in and inviting in his bed.   
He’d need a new plan, then, and obviously the spy didn’t know he knew, and he could use that to his advantage. Feed him false information, lead the Resistance further away.   
This of course, also had the added advantage of being able to pretend for a little while longer.   
“You were gone a long time,” Dameron said.   
“I was just smoking.”   
“You coming back to bed?” Dameron said, pushing himself up on his elbows, the sheets falling further below his waist.   
Hux wanted to crawl into bed and latch himself to Dameron like a parasite, to never let go, to drain him of his all brightness and humanity until he was just a shell, and he wouldn’t let go even then, he’d stay attached to him, long after they both died: light-starved and empty.   
“No,” said Hux, “I’m not tired.”  
“Are you okay?” Dameron said, and he was so good at faking warmth, “You look pale. Well. Paler.”   
“I’m well, thank you,” he said, “Just hungry, I think. Do you want something to drink?”  
The spy nodded, and so Hux left to go and switch on the battery powered kettle, taking a nutrition bar from the draw.   
“That’s not food,” Fake-Grus said, entering the room with his sheets wrapped around him like an oversized toga, trailing on the floor and collecting dust.   
“Do you have anything better?”   
“Nope,” Dameron said, sitting in Hux’s chair before he can get there.   
“How disappointing,” Hux said, with a shrug.   
“Can I have one?”   
“It’s not food,” Hux’s says, and throws the one that is already in his hand over to Dameron, who caught deftly, though Hux had been aiming at his head.   
Hux takes out another nutrition bar and continues making drinks, lingering over the cabinet long after he’s done, sparing only a sideways glance to Dameron, who has made himself comfortable with his feet on his desk.   
Of course, he could simply kill Dameron here and now - it would be easy enough, though the blood would never wash out of the sheets without ruining the soft texture. Nobody would suspect him, even if they noticed ‘Grus’’s disappearance. All of his secrets would stay secret.   
The best way of keeping a secret, after all, was killing everyone who knew it.   
There were a few options then, some with better outcomes than others. He could kill him, or send him on his way - perhaps think of some elaborate way to get him fired. Of course he’d simply go running back to the Resistance, but that was moderately better than option three, which would mean locking him in a cell and hoping Kylo Ren didn’t dig deep enough to find out how much time Hux had been spending with him.   
“Grus,” he said, approaching with the hot chocolate, the smell so sweet it made him want to gag, “Sit properly.”   
It took everything to stop him from saying his real name. He despised using Grus’s name - who by all accounts had been a dedicated officer - to refer to this Resistance nobody.   
Dameron moves his legs so Hux can place his drink down, feeling sick at the idea of serving him drinks instead of doing what he really should be doing and slitting his throat. 

* *

  
Phasma kicks softly at his ankle and stands next to him, looming impressively over the rest of the bridge. He wasn’t so proud as to be unable to admit that he was slightly jealous of her ability to tower so impressively.   
“You look lost,” Phasma said, quietly, “Mitaka says you haven’t moved in over an hour.”   
His hands tighten into fists at his sides before he forces them back behind his back.   
“If I have a problem, and there are three really bad solutions to the problem, how do I know what to do?”   
“Choose the least shitty one,” said Phasma.   
“They’re all equally shitty,” Hux said.   
“Have you killed someone?”   
“No,” said Hux, “Not yet, at least.”  
“Then kill ‘em, problem solved.”   
“What if I don’t want them dead,” Hux said.   
“Is it me?”   
“What makes you think I wouldn’t want you dead?” Hux said, “And why would I ask your advice on killing you?”   
“Well, firstly, because you’d be lost without me, and secondly, it does seem like something you’d do.”  
“It’s not about you,” Hux said, impatiently, “It’s about someone else.”   
“You’re being incredibly vague and it’s really hard to help,” Phasma said, “What are the other options, other than killing them?”   
“Sending them away,” Hux said, “Or turning them in. And breaking our rule of never involving Kylo Ren in our business.”  
“Your rule and your business,” Phasma said, “If Ren is a consideration, then what this individual has done…you can’t honestly be thinking about betraying -”  
“The only person I’ll be betraying is myself,” Hux interrupted, kicking her in the ankle this, time, forgetting about the armour. She stifles a laugh.   
“I think you’ve made up your mind,” Phasma said, “You know I’m not beyond taking you out if you fuck this up for both of us, right?”   
“I’ve long since learned that lesson, Phasma,” he said, trying to sound dismissive, “I have something else to discuss.”   
“What?”   
“Habea. Junior,” Hux said, “His personal problems with me have gone beyond what I’ve thus far generously allowed, and it’s not just me he’s complaining about now.”  
“He’s mentioned me?”  
“His father has, yes,” Hux said.   
He steps away from control, and Phasma followed him away from the bridge, down the sleek, long corridors.   
“What do you want me to do?” Phasma asked, when there was no place for prying ears to hide.   
“Whatever you think is the best way to solve our problem permanently.”   
“And his father?”   
“I’ll deal with him.” 

*

Dameron doesn’t seem to notice any change in his attitude, and Hux decides to put this down to a lack of observation on his part.  
“Where’s Peter?”   
He forgets about the stupid nickname for the plant, and stares silently at Dameron for a couple of seconds before it catches up with him.   
“Dead,” Hux said.   
“You don’t strike me as the type that forgets to water plants,” Dameron said.   
“It has nothing to do with something I did or didn’t do,” Hux said, “A star-destroyer simply isn’t the best place in the galaxy for plants.”   
Dameron smirks in the way that always makes him feel faintly embarrassed, like he has said something incredibly stupid.   
“Where’ve you been all day?” Dameron said, “You didn’t come for a smoke today.”   
“You asked about my plant before you asked about me,” Hux said, “I’m trying to cut back on cigs.”   
Dameron laughs, spots the obvious lie but doesn’t call him out on it.   
Hux decides to play along when Dameron steps closer to him, starts to undo his belt and peel off his layers, and lets himself fall easily when Dameron pushes him onto the bed, leaning over him.  
“Is this okay?” Dameron said, his full mouth grazing Hux’s collarbone.   
Hux nodded, lets himself get taken in by the fresh smell of Dameron’s hair and his warm, strong body.   
Sex had always been a good way for him to take his mind of whatever was currently causing him anxiety, though rarely did come with as many strings attached as this.   
He’s almost entirely lost in it when Dameron ruins it.   
“I love you,”   
Hux thinks he has misheard.   
But the look Dameron gives him as he pushes him away confirms he didn’t.   
“Sorry,” Dameron said, “That’s not the reaction I wanted, but uh, you don’t have to say it back.”   
There’s nothing in Dameron’s face that betrays any kind of hesitance or regret the words, nor any shame. There’s a deep sickness in that, that someone can tell such a lie so fluently.   
Hux doesn’t say anything back, just wraps his hands in Dameron’s curls and pulls him closer once more, leaving Dameron to nip at his neck as Hux stares at the ceiling, regretfully letting things continue until they’re both finished and he escapes for the shower.   
He can’t do it, can’t pretend, can’t have long talks with Dameron and act like he doesn’t know who he is, act like he believes the ridiculous lie, and he especially can’t do if Dameron refuses to play fairly.   
His respect for General Organa might be reluctant and dull, but it was there. She was a smart woman, and her people liked her. She was more dangerous to him than everyone in the Republic put together (and dangerous to them, too, not that they’d look past themselves long enough to recognise the threat she presented to the status quo). She wouldn’t send a complete amateur to his ship. If Dameron was an inexperienced spy, he must have Organa’s trust, he must know something.  
Which meant he’d have to hand him over to Ren, have to allow him to mine for information. He didn’t want Ren to know everything. But Dameron was going to have pay the price every spy eventually did: exposure. Phasma was right, he couldn’t betray the First Order. He couldn’t let an asset like Dameron go, couldn’t simply kill him, either, and there was small, spiteful, self-pitying part of him that had decided Dameron deserved to suffer for so throughly using and manipulating him, even if it meant Hux had to suffer, too. He deserved it for letting himself believe it. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, that went well.   
> Thank you to everyone for reading/kudos-ing/commenting it takes me to almost pre-corona levels of happiness every time.


	11. Flat Call

Poe loses count of days pretty quickly, despite putting a significant amount of effort into trying.   
He knows he’s had nine meals, but they were served infrequently, so that’s no measure of how many he might get per day.   
It’s not the worst cell Poe’s found himself in. The bed is about as comfortable as the one he’d been staying in before he’d started sleeping Hux’s rooms. It’s a little small, he feels constantly tired. There’s a small toilet and sink in the corner, but it’s not a real refresher and there’s no privacy. He’s cut off from the world by a large, clear plastic divide.   
He knows that it’s going to get worse. The First Order is not exactly known for their exemplarily treatment of prisoners.   
And, for what was maybe hours or days or weeks, all he can think about is Hux. Thinks about the last night they’d spent together.   
Poe refuses to regret any of it, even if he feels faintly stupid. It couldn’t really have been anyone but to Hux to get him dragged away from the bridge and into the cells. The betrayal had come quickly, and Poe finds himself wishing he’d had a couple of extra weeks.   
Worse of all, he missed Hux.  
And his bed.   
Poe’s food is brought to him a rotating parade of Stormtroopers, as faceless and personality-negative as they are humourless.   
Until, one morning, (evening? Poe doesn’t know, but it’s not long since he had woken up) Poe is visited by Cuth, carrying the usual metal tray of bland, but perfectly edible, food.   
He’d not even considered that many people would notice he’d gone, let alone question it, let alone come and visit him.   
“Hi,” Cuth said, “Uh…”   
“Poe,”   
“Poe,” Cuth said, “I’d say it’s nice to meet you, but from what I’m hearing, you’re the galaxy’s greatest scumbag.”  
Poe can’t help but smile at Cuth.   
“Well, if you heard it, it must be true,” he says.   
“I guess I should’ve guessed,” Cuth said, “You’re kind of obvious.”   
“Hey, hindsight is 20-20,” Poe said, with a little shrug.   
Cuth puts down the tray on the small table at the opposite side of the room than the bed that Poe had been sat on.   
“Is it true?” Cuth said.  
“Is what true?”   
“You killed Habea,”   
“Nope, not that one.”   
“Oh,” Cuth said, “I would’ve said congratulations.”   
“Sorry to disappoint,” Poe says.   
Cuth gives him a very tight smile.   
“I’m sorry,” he said, “I wish it wasn’t like this.”   
“Me, too,” said Poe.   
“I haven’t heard anything about what’s going to happen to you,” Cuth said, “But it can’t be good.”  
“No, I doubt it’ll be a picnic,” Poe said.  
“If there’s anything I can do - ”  
“Don’t get yourself into trouble,” Poe said, “And don’t turn into an asshole.”  
“I’ll try not to,” Cuth said, he glances behind him, “I have to go.”   
“Feel free to come again,” Poe said, “I’ll be here all week.”   
Poe wishes that Cuth hadn’t left, because the silence he leaves behind echoes throughout the room and it’s worse than it had been before he’d had any visitors. 

***

He didn’t expect Hux to come. The more time went by the more unlikely it seemed.   
When he does come, he’s flanked by a Stormtrooper, who he mutters something to and who then stalks off along the corridor, out of Poe’s sight. Hux scans his thumb over the door-pad, and steps in. Poe refuses to stand.   
“Nice of you to finally visit,” he said, arms folded behind his head. Hux stays with his back against the door as the plastic divide closes.   
Hux slowly puts his gloves back on. Hux looks paler than usual, with lilac circles underneath his eyes.   
“I’m sorry to have kept you waiting,” Hux said, tightly.   
“Eh, I didn’t have much else planned,” Poe said, “Staring at this wall, staring at that wall. Sometimes I stare at the ceiling. Sometimes I stare - ”  
“Shut up,” Hux said, frowning.   
“How long ago did you figure out who I was?”   
“A while ago,” Hux said, non-committal.   
Poe smirked, “Sure. And you kept it to yourself?”   
“You’re not particularly in the position to be asking me questions,” Hux said.   
Poe ignored him.   
“Did you kill Habea?”   
“No,” Hux said.  
“Did you have him killed?”   
Hux’s smile was ugly.   
“Yes,” he said.   
“Why?”  
“I told you,” Hux said, “I wasn’t allowing him to be proved correct about you.”  
“Why not just kill me?”   
“You’ll have information that could be of some use to me,” Hux said, “Habea was entirely useless and even more a nuisance than even you managed to be.”   
“Oh Hux, I’m flattered.”  
“Don’t be. I have no remaining positive feelings towards you,” Hux said.   
“Remaining?”   
“Regrettably I did rather enjoy spending time with you,” Hux said, looking at the floor, “Which is why I’m here to offer you some advice.”  
“Can’t wait to hear it,” Poe said.   
Hux narrowed his stormy grey-green eyes, looking faintly irritated.   
“Kylo Ren will be questioning you,” Hux said, ignoring Poe’s comment, “He will question you when he returns…”   
“Returns?”   
“Ren has been distracted by a task that he has deemed more important than investigating espionage.”  
“Great,” Poe says, “Nice to know where I stand.”   
“He’s rather selfish with his time,” Hux said, “Regardless…”  
“Will you do something for me?” Poe says, and he finally stands. Hux is watching him, eyes cold.   
“Excuse me?”   
Hux looks shocked, almost appalled, that Poe would ask him for a favour, and it makes Poe smirk to himself that he’d managed to chip away at the smugness Hux had been wearing like an armour since he’d come in.   
“Look, you’re about the only person I can ask,” Poe said, “I gotta try something.”   
He digs in the inner breast pocket of the tunic, Hux stands back, like he had been about to pull out a blaster.   
Poe had been searched of course, but it admittedly had not been very thorough, and he’d managed to keep his most precious possession hidden.   
Poe pulls out his mother’s ring on its chain, the only thing he’d been worried about losing since he’d gotten there.   
“I went you to get this back to my Dad,” he said.   
Hux frowns at him like he’s crazy, looks completely astounded.   
“How do you propose I am supposed to do that?”   
Poe shrugs.   
“You’re supposed to be smart,” Poe said, sharply, “Send it to someone in the Resistance, and they’ll know where to take it.”  
“How many contacts at the Resistance do you suppose I have?” Hux said, voice like acid.   
“Please,” Poe said, “Try?”  
Hux shifts and adjusts his posture.   
“What is it?”   
“It was my mom’s wedding ring,” Poe said, “If I’m gonna die here, it should go back to my dad.”   
Hux swallows, holds out his hand.  
“Alright,” he said.   
“Really?”   
“Yes,”   
Poe drops the ring in Hux’s hand.   
“Will you - ”  
“I promise, Dameron,” Hux said, “That I will do everything I can to get this ring to someone in the Resistance.”   
“Why?” Poe said.  
“You just asked.”   
“I didn’t think you’d say yes,” Poe said.  
Hux rolls his eyes.   
“Do you not want me to?”   
“I do,” Poe said, “Thank you.”   
“That’s it then,” Hux said, “That’s all I’m doing for you.”  
“Okay,” Poe said, “I won’t ask for anything else. I mean, if you could get an extra pillow sent down here, I wouldn’t complain.”   
Hux slips the ring in his pocket, still frowning, but it’s a weak and unconvincing frown.   
“Will it hurt? When Kylo Ren gets back?”   
Hux meets Poe in the eyes properly for the first time since he’d arrived, and they’re standing close enough to touch.   
Hux’s hand twitches, and for a moment he looks like he’s going to place his hand on Poe’s shoulder.  
He doesn’t, of course.   
Poe didn’t really expect him to.   
“Have you been tortured before?” Hux asked, semi-casual, like it was a normal thing to ask about.  
“Just punched about a bit,” Poe said, “Nothing too bad.”  
“It’s worse than that,” Hux said, “Worse than any torture that someone else can inflict on you.”   
“You’d know?”   
Hux narrowed his eyes again, but the corners of his lips had twitched, like he was going to say something cruel or make a joke of it.   
“I’m not saying that to try and scare you. You shouldn’t fight him. I know you will, no matter of what I say, but it’ll be much easier if you let him take what he wants.”   
“Is that what you did?” Poe said, taking him in. He’s got darker circles under his eyes than usual, and he’s paler than Poe thought possible.   
“I’m not ashamed of my desire for self-preservation,” Hux said, “He’ll get the information regardless.”   
“Doesn’t mean I have to make it easy for him,” Poe says.   
“Everything is easy for him,” Hux said, “I know you’re not stupid, Dameron, as much as you like to pretend to be.”   
“Maybe you just want to think I’m not, because if I am stupid, you must be really fucking stupid, ‘cause you fell for it.”  
Hux looked pissed, which was hardly a new expression for him. Poe grinned in response.   
“I’m not giving anything up easily,” Poe said, “Sorry if that makes you worry about me.”   
“I’m not worrying about you,” Hux said, unconvincingly.   
“Good, because I can take care of myself,” Poe said, hopefully more convincingly than he felt.   
He really didn’t have much of a plan, but Hux didn’t have to know that.   
“You’ll probably be executed when Ren decides he’s finished with you,” Hux said, “There’s little hope for you.”   
“I’m glad to hear you believe in me,”   
“You’re lucky,” Hux said, “Once they get in your head like that, they never leave. Your thoughts are never yours again, your memories, good or bad, are all poisoned.”   
“Does Ren know that we - ”  
“Yes,” Hux said, looks behind his shoulder, “Of course he does. He knows everything that I do. And soon he’ll know everything that you do.”  
Hux turns around to leave.  
“Is this the last time I’m going to see you,” Poe said after him.  
“Most likely,” Hux said, without turning around.   
“I meant everything I said,” Poe said.   
This was true, it wasn’t something he wanted to admit out loud, not after what had happened again.   
“You weren’t ever part of a plan,” Poe said, “I promise that, Hux. I wasn’t even supposed to talk to you.”   
Hux still doesn’t turn around, doesn’t make a sound. There’s just the faint whoosh of the door opening.   
Later that evening a pillow is delivered to his room, and Poe can’t bring himself to hate Hux as much as he’d liked. 

**

More time passes, and Poe is really starting to fall apart. It’s deathly boring, and he’d almost prefer whatever tortures Kylo Ren has in store for him.   
He passes the day thinking about his Dad, his friends, BB-8, and how no-one would even know that he was locked up. If they did, would they come for him?  
No, Leia was a good person but a smart leader, she wouldn’t risk multiple lives to save one person, and Poe would not want her to, not even in his most selfish moments.   
Had Hux sent the ring? If he had, maybe they would know something had happened to him.   
Poe had thought he’d been bored when he’d been working.   
Now he had, quite literally, nothing to do but pace the cell like an animal locked up in a cage.   
Cuth comes, one more time, to bring his food.   
“You look like crap,” Cuth had said, quietly, taking in Poe’s new beard, untamed curls and rumpled version of the First Order uniform.  
Poe, for once, isn’t really in the mood for joking but he still give a false grin and says,   
“If I’d known you were coming, I’d have put on my dinner suit.”   
“Sorry,” Cuth says, picking up Poe’s unusually short tone.   
“I want to speak to General Hux,”  
“He’s not here.”  
Poe pushed the worry that Hux might be in trouble away from himself, but he can’t stop himself from asking.  
“Where is he?”   
“Overseeing the end of the construction of - ” Cuth said, “I really shouldn’t tell you.”   
“Who am I going to tell? Kylo Ren?” Poe said, “I heard about the weapon. Is that where he is?”   
Cuth nods.   
“Kylo Ren is due to return tomorrow,” Cuth says, “I thought I’d tell you that.”   
“Thanks,” Poe says, “Did you want to give me something to look forward to?”   
Cuth’s forehead wrinkles.   
“No, I just wanted you to know. I’m not sure of any details, but Ren is planet-side with some Stormtroopers. I’ve heard that his personal goals aren’t being achieved.”   
“So he’ll be nice and cheery for me then,” Poe said. 

*

Things are hurried and abuzz then, because Poe doesn’t get served another meal, though some time does pass. The next visit he’s paid, a pair of Stormtroopers come to escort him to a particularly bleak looking room, where they leave him to wait for Kylo Ren.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading for any comments and kudos!


	12. Fixed Odds

Hux’s first meeting with Snoke had gone so badly that, when he looks back, he is surprised he wasn’t executed there and then.

He’d failed to properly greet his Supreme Leader, an act that lead to Snoke repeating, _bow_ in his head, and his face connected with the hard stone floor. 

He thinks he blacked out. All he remembers is having to swallow blood as he spoke, and feeling like he was choking on it as it dripped down the back of his throat. 

He woke, the next morning, to several dozen worried messages and what had been at the time, the worst migraine he’d experienced. 

His pillow was stained with a worrying amount of blood. He’d struggled into the refresher, blanching at the state of his own face. His nose had definitely been broken, his eye socket was swollen. He’d cleaned up the dried blood and then, unwisely, attempted to swill the blood from his mouth, which had resulted in such a great deal of pain that his mirror-image swam out of focus. 

He had leaned towards his reflection, holding his lip back to inspect the nuisance tooth. One of his teeth had cracked almost entirely in half, hanging on to itself loosely. He touched it and his eyes watered, he ground the rest of his teeth together, and took hold of the lower half of the tooth with two fingers.

He twisted the tooth, suppressed the rising bile. 

His eyes watered more and he hesitated, but he had hated the way he looked, red eyed and pathetic and messy, so much that he goes back in and twisted it hard enough that he had blacked out from the pain. 

Not for long, he had come to within a few seconds, head throbbing more than it had before. He’d pulled himself to his knees, picked up the half-tooth from the floor and stared at the offensive piece of himself for a few seconds before throwing it down the sink. He’d managed to stagger back to his feet, and wash out his mouth out with water. It still hurt, bare nerves exposed, but he had gotten used to such a thing, he always does. 

He meant, of course, to get the tooth fixed, in the same way he meant to have surgery to fix his eyesight without having to result to corrective lenses. 

The will occasionally floats into his head, and leaves again once he remembers how much he hates medics, how much he hates fuss. Besides, his teeth were never perfect to begin with the dissolvable lenses serve him just fine. 

It wasn’t the last time he’d limped away from a meeting with the Supreme Leader, but Snoke had realised rather quickly that physical abuse was rather wasted on him, even if it involved fancy Sith tricks. It was much more effective to drag memories to the front of his thoughts, and to remind him, frequently, that his worth both to Snoke himself and First Order was limited. 

All this before he even had a chance to really fuck up. 

This time, he suspected, would be worse. 

He’d been doubling down on stims since leaving Dameron in the cell and leaving to oversee the end of the construction of Starkiller Base, which meant his heart was getting increasingly erratic (Dameron had been right: the stims did make his heart worse make them muscle crumble into the hole he was born with fall faster, but it was already an inevitably that it would eventually totally cave in on itself, and soon there would be nothing but empty space beneath his sternum).

He is not, exactly, avoiding contact with the Supreme Leader. Doing so would only make his situation worse. He’s simply decided to make himself a little more difficult to contact.

He is however, ignoring Kylo Ren, who, after years of ignoring him, certainly deserves it. 

He can’t spend forever on Ilum, as much as, in all honestly and considering his current situation, he’d prefer to. He doesn’t quite allow himself to enjoy overseeing construction, but it keeps his mind busy in a way that the bridge doesn’t. 

Whenever he finds himself thinking of Poe Dameron, he pinches at the skin of his wrist and pushes him out of his head. It’s about as useful as trying to keep Ren out, but like with Ren and Snoke and all other mind-invaders, he has to try. 

He’d never thought he’d prefer the ugly ice-planet over the comfort of his own _Finalizer,_ but he is reluctant when he’s unceremoniously summoned back. 

*

Ren is in predictably hideous mood when he returns from Jakku, something to do with an astromech droid and his continued obsession with tiresome and ancient Jedi drama, and Phasma, too, is rather short with him regarding a disobedient Stormtrooper, and he hardly sees how either has anything to do with him. He’d long since handed almost complete control over the Stormtroopers to Phasma, and any insubordination in the ranks would be her mess to clean up. 

He’d never much been concerned about whatever interest or obsession it was that Ren was currently pursuing. 

They both, however, seemed to think he should care, when all he wanted to concentrate on was his Starkiller.

And then Ren decided the Dameron might have some information, and finally deigned to take him for questioning. 

There was a heavy dread in the pit of Hux’s stomach, though Ren already knew everything that could implicate Hux himself, and seeing as he was still alive, Ren did not think any of it important enough to bring up with the Supreme Leader (or, more likely and less comfortingly, the Supreme Leader didn’t think any of it important enough to result in Hux’s immediate execution - and Hux would have to convince Snoke that he was worth keeping around all over again). 

When Ren was done with Dameron, Dameron would be useless. And when Dameron was useless, he’d surely be executed. 

Hux had not been squeamish about killing for a very long time. The last time he’d cried about someone’s death, he had been about eight. The first time he’d killed someone, by his own hands, he’d been twelve, and he had prided himself then on feeling _nothing._

Now, though, he couldn’t even stand the thought of Dameron dying. 

Poe Dameron is everything he should hate in a person, everything he does and always has hated. 

It’s not just the cockiness, which, to a degree, he’d always found faintly attractive in other people, even if he loathed himself for liking it. 

He hates Poe Dameron’s commitment to the Resistance, for lying to him, for making him like him, for making him think, just for a few minutes, that there would be a chance for a normal relationship, even a friendship. 

He hates everything that Poe Dameron supports and stands for. 

He doesn’t hate Poe Dameron, and he doesn’t want him to die. 

Hux isn’t delusional. He will not stand a chance against Kylo Ren. His worth to the First Order and. 

Snoke doesn’t outweigh abject and open betrayal. Snoke has told Ren not to do anything that would permanently damage him. With the thin ice Armitage is on, if there is anything that would give Ren an excuse to actually choke him to death, this would be it. 

There is little he can do except wait for Ren to get distracted, and, knowing Ren as he does, he doesn’t think he’ll be waiting long.

He thinks he knows Dameron enough to know that he’ll be able to hold out against Ren, and as long as Ren thinks there is something more, hidden deeper in the recesses of Dameron’s mind, Dameron will be safe from a summary murder. 

*

He’s on his way, without all that much of a plan, to in the very least move Dameron out of Ren’s path. 

It is unusual for him. He seems to spend half of his life scheming or plotting or planning, and now here he is. 

As it turns out, he doesn’t need a plan, because as he skirts around the corner the walks straight into Dameron, and a trooper with a blaster pointed half-heartedly at his back. 

Hux looked from Dameron to the trooper, waiting for an explanation.

“Transfer. Requested by Kylo Ren,” the trooper said. 

“No it wasn’t,” Hux said, turned to Dameron, “Did you think I’d believe that?”

“It wasn’t my excuse,” Dameron said, and frowning turns to the trooper, “Can you give us, like, ten seconds?” 

The trooper lowers the blaster and Dameron steps away, close enough that Armitage can feel the warmth of his body. 

“Is he one of yours?” Hux said. 

“No,” Dameron said, small smile tugging at the corners of his lips, “He _was_ one of yours.”

“I can’t let you go,” Hux said. 

He’s not sure why he says it, when it had been exactly what he was intending to do. 

Dameron pushes him roughly against the wall. 

“I’m not staying.”

Hux doesn’t give Dameron the satisfaction of a struggle against him. 

“What, exactly, is your plan?” Hux said. 

He did a fair job of sounding calm, considering the way Dameron holding his shoulders. 

“What was Ren looking for?” 

“Whatever it was you’re hiding,” Hux said, “Do you think you can just take a trooper and walk out of here?”

“Not me. Planet-side. What was he looking for?” 

“I really have very little interest in Ren’s quests,” Hux said, “He mentioned an astromech droid.” 

“A droid? What droid?” 

“I don’t know, a Resistance droid,” 

“Ren _said_ astromech?” Dameron said, “Do you know the series - ”

“I don’t know anything about the fucking droid, Dameron,” Hux said.

Dameron frowned, but loosened up. 

Hux took the opportunity to let the blade slide from beneath his sleeve and push back against Dameron, towards the opposing wall. 

The trooper, at least, was more disciplined than Dameron and had not let his guard down, having been paying enough attention to point the blaster at Hux’s head, rather than just in their general direction. Which rather spoke to his advanced training. 

“Oh,” Dameron says, those deep down eyes widening then flickering down to the tip of the blade that was pressing lightly at his throat, “Really, Armitage?” 

“Shut up,” Hux said, “Ren will be expecting you to be in there, waiting for him.” 

“I’ll shoot,” The trooper threatens. 

“How good is your aim?” Hux said. 

“The best,” the trooper said. 

“And you’re willing to bet his life on it? And yours, too?” 

Hux and Dameron are close enough that the trooper doubts himself and hesitates. 

“At least let him go,” Dameron says, “It’s my fault, it’s nothing to do with him.” 

“Usually I’d believe that,” Hux said, “You should both be executed.” 

Dameron shrugs, the blade bites him, barely more than a paper cut, but the small pool of red catches Armitage’s eye. 

“Should,” Dameron said, “Really?” 

Hux glares over at the trooper again, doesn’t mind what happens to him. Reconditioning, transfer, defection, death, it’s all the same to Hux. One stormtrooper isn’t worth all that much, in the end (one Resistance pilot shouldn’t be worth anything either, but he still finds himself slipping the cigarette case in Dameron’s pocket, and Dameron doesn’t notice). 

“You have a plan, I assume?” Hux said, but he doesn’t loosen his grip on Dameron or the blade. 

“No,” Dameron said. 

Dameron pushes his mouth into Hux’s and it’s not particularly pleasant. Hux drops the blade.

It’s the sort of effect that he expects Dameron wanted. 

Hux takes a swift step backwards, a small amount of blood clots at Dameron’s throat. 

“Go,” said Hux. 

“What?” 

“Just go,” Hux said, he points towards the trooper, “And take _that_ with you.”

Dameron frowns at him, dark eyebrows knotted together, stumbling away. 

He looks towards the trooper, who gestures impatiently, determined not to lose an opportunity for defection. 

“Come with us,” Dameron says. 

Hux laughs, and the Stormtrooper chokes out a disbelieving “ _What?!”_

“No,” said Hux, “Not a chance.”

“They’ll kill you if they find out you let us go,” said Dameron.

“I didn’t let you go,” Hux said, “You’re holding a blaster to my head.” 

The Stormtrooper raises the blaster again, Hux rolls his eyes. 

“I want you to come with me,” said Dameron, “With us.” 

Hux hesitates, it’s only fleeting, because he weaves the truth together quickly enough in his head that he doesn’t make a horrible mistake. 

“For what?” Hux said, “So I can spend the rest of my life in a Resistance prison?” 

“No,” Dameron frowns. 

“Uh,” the Stormtrooper says, “ _Can_ we go?” 

Dameron pauses again, but then takes a step away from Hux. 

“Hit me,” Hux said, “Hard enough to knock me out.” 

“What? No.” 

The trooper doesn’t share Dameron’s reluctance, lunges forward and uses the end of the blaster to hit him against the head. 

“That was way more than ten seconds,” the trooper says, as Hux loses consciousness. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Surprise quick update (!) thank you so much for comments, kudos and for reading the last chapter.


	13. Eighty-Six'd

When they’re finally far enough away from the Finalizer to relax, Poe leans back in the chair and turns to the newly-named Finn (and thinking about those numbers made Poe’s stomach turn).   
“Well that was lucky,” Poe said, grinning.   
He hadn’t really realised he’d been holding his breath, basically since having left Hux.   
“That’s one way to put it,” Finn says, “What do you suppose happens next?”   
“We go to the Resistance of course,” Poe says, “Hug a lot of people, eat a good meal, take a nap…”  
“I meant in the First Order.”   
“Oh, they’re going to be pissed when the realise what happened,” Poe says, doesn’t let himself consider that Hux is the only one there to bear the brunt of that realisation.   
He stretches, feels something hard in the pocket of his well-worn uniform, peaks inside to see Hux’s silver cigarette case. He doesn’t react, even though he doesn’t know how it had got there or how long it had been there, or, exactly, why he had it.   
“This thing flies great,” Poe says, “But these seats suck.”  
“Comfort isn’t exactly a First Order priority,” Finn said, Poe turns to him to share a smile.   
Finn’s got a great smile.   
It’s here he considers that usually, under literally any circumstances, Finn would be exactly his type. Fast, easy smile, strong-arms, kind enough to want to risk his life to save a stranger. Crazy enough to actually follow through.   
Poe’s made up his mind that they’re already friends. You can’t help but feel that way about someone who’s just completed a daring escape mission with you.   
He doesn’t feel the same way when he looks at Finn that he does when he looks at Hux.  
He really should’ve dragged Hux along with them.   
When they’re close to the Resistance base, Poe sends a message ahead giving warning. It’s half courtesy, half not wanting to get shot from the sky the second the realise a TIE is entering their airspace.   
He can feel the nerves radiating from Finn almost as if he’s the defecting Stormtrooper. He reaches back and squeezes Finn’s hand.   
“Don’t worry,” Poe says, “You’re with me. Everyone _loves_ me.”   
Finn’s nerves barely dissipate.  
  
When they land, it’s a little after sundown, and, predictably, there’s a small crowd to greet them. They’re not exactly swarmed, and Poe suspects the majority of people on base have been told to stay away, other than those who might be needed if it was an elaborate trick.   
Rose is one of the first that gets to him, and she’s nice enough to not greet him with, _I told you so._   
“Poe,” Rose said, and hugs him. He is grateful enough to fall into it, “Who’s this? Your friend?”  
She says it with a grin and the raise of one brow.   
“Different friend. New friend. His name is Finn,” Poe says, “Finn, this is Rose.”  
Finn nods at Rose, stands behind them with an overwhelmed expression on his face.   
“Where’s BB-8?” Poe says, and Rose’s face falls.  
“You heard, huh?” She says, scrunching her nose.  
“Yeah, I heard,” Poe said.   
“BB-8 volunteered,” Rose said,   
“Of course he volunteered, he’s a droid,” Poe mutters, and Rose glares him back into silence.   
“He went with Jenks on a mission for Leia.”   
“And?”   
“I don’t know any details,” Rose said, and huffed, “Jenks has gone dark. We can’t find BB, either.”   
“Fuck,”   
Poe turns back to face the TIE fighter, while Finn frowns at him.   
“Who’s Beebee?”   
“My droid,” Poe said, “I have to - ”  
“Poe,” Rose said, “It’s not the time, okay? Trust us.”   
Poe nods, runs his hand through his hair. 

Poe doesn’t push the issue of BB-8 out loud, but it’s stuck in the back of his mind as he and Finn receive extensive medical checks from Dr Kalonia.   
Poe agrees to sign them both up for at least one session with the on-base counsellor, and then takes Finn back to his room.   
He lets Finn take the first shower. It’s just a small sonic, but it’s better than nothing and more private than the shared water-showers in the main section of the building.   
Finn is close enough to the same size as him that there’s no problem sharing clothes.   
After a sonic himself, a quick shave and changing into his own clothes, Poe almost feels himself again.   
“You hungry? I’m hungry,” Poe says, and Finn, who still seemed a little shocked by the whole situation, nods and follows along to the cantina.  
They eat from the dedicated leftovers fridge, two meals apiece. Food in the First Order prioritised nutrition over taste, and Poe is grateful that he’s back to eating with flavour. Food on base was a product of the many different cultures and planets its residents came from.   
Finn, too, seems to enjoy it. Poe doesn’t ask if it’s the first time he’s had something other than the boring, bland meals served on ships, mostly because he thinks he knows the answer and the answer is miserable. 

“You’ll get a room in a couple of days,” Poe says, when they get back to his room, “I can take the couch.”  
“I’m not making you sleep on a couch in your own room,”   
“I’m not making a guest sleep on a couch,” Poe said.   
“I don’t mind sharing the bed if you don’t,” Finn said, with a shrug, “I’ve shared smaller beds with worse-smelling people.”  
It’s nice to have someone lying next to him again, but it’s not the same. He can’t very well attach himself to this near-stranger, and besides, he’d still miss the comforting sharpness of Hux’s elbow.  
They say goodnight to each other a couple of times, awkwardly chuckle as they try and get comfortable without getting too close to each other.   
“Did you kiss General Hux?” Finn asks, after about twenty-minutes of silence.  
“Yeah,”  
“What uh,” Finn said, “Why?”  
“It disarmed him, didn’t it?”   
“He’s the worst,” Finn said, “Completely. A complete bastard.”  
“I liked him,” Poe said, half true, he supposes, because it was both more and less than like.  
“Maybe not the literal worst,” Finn said, “I mean. I heard there are worse generals. And uh, well, Stormtrooper deaths went down after he took over from his father…”  
“You don’t have to be nice about him,” Poe said, “I know who he is.”  
“Good,” Finn said, “Because I have nothing else nice to say.”   
“He let us go,” Poe said.   
“I would’ve shot him,” Finn said.   
“I know,” Poe said, “He still let us go.”   
There are plenty of answers to that, and Poe knows Finn knows it, including but not limited to, _he’s a fucking coward who would rather lose a prisoner and stormtrooper than_ die, but Poe’s thoughts drift back to the cigarette case still in his pocket. 

They sleep late. It’s not really Poe’s intention, but they don’t have their meetings with Leia until the afternoon, and really, Poe can’t seem to drag himself out of bed. The excitement of the previous day or so had caught up with him.   
Even after he wakes up, he finds himself laying in bed and staring at the ceiling, a past-time he should really be sick to death with.   
When Finn stirs, Poe gives him some clean clothes and they wander into the mess, which luckily hasn’t picked up for the lunch rush yet.   
A few people smile at him, they say hi, express curiosity at Finn, but most seem to keep their distance, which Poe isn’t exactly happy with. Still, it’s probably better to ease Finn in rather than simply throw him into the deep end and hope he can swim.   
“So, uh, what do we do now?” Finn said.   
He’d asked that same question a handful of times over the few waking hours they’d had together and Poe shrugs.   
“I dunno,” he says, “We’ve still got an hour until we meet with Leia. What do you like doing?”   
Finn gives him a look that Poe can’t quite put a name to.   
“I don’t know,” Finn said, “I’ve never really had free time.”   
Poe, at least, has a moderate understanding of life within the First Order. It’s highly regimented - but the troopers got even less free time than the officers.   
“We could go to the gym,” Poe suggests, “Or back to my room? I can teach you a card game we play on Yavin 4.”   
“Sure,” Finn says, “A card game sounds good.” 

****

Poe usually finds it easy enough to relax around other people, but he’s glad to get a few minutes alone as he waits outside Leia’s office for Finn.   
He digs in his pocket for Hux’s cigarette case. He’d been carrying it out around all day, hoping to snatch a few seconds to open it without anyone watching. He couldn’t help but feel that there was something more to it than a last-minute parting gift.   
He clicks it open and rolls his fingers over the cigarettes. Maybe Hux had poisoned them, and letting him go was a trick.   
Poe smirked to himself and lit one. It’s not that he’d put such a thing past Hux, but he didn’t believe it.   
It seemed a little high-effort and had a high risk for Hux himself.   
He slides the case back into his pocket, deciding there was nothing special about it.   
Finn isn’t with Leia for long, and smiles at Poe comfortingly when he comes out.   
“Go okay?” Poe said.   
“Yeah,” Finn said, “Yeah, I think so.”   
“Good,” Poe said, “We’ll go for dinner when I’m done?”   
“Sure,” Finn said, and sits where Poe had been as Poe saunters into Leia’s office.   
“Commander Dameron,” Leia said, half-warm, half-stern, wholly familiar, “I’m glad to see you in one piece.”  
“You were expecting anything else?” Poe says, sitting down at her desk.   
Leia raises an eyebrow.  
“I was expecting a lot of things,” she said, she reaches into her desk draw and takes out a box, and from that a small, folded piece of paper, “What I wasn’t expecting was a special delivery from one General Armitage Hux.”  
“Oh,” Poe said, “So he sent it, then?”   
“Yes,” Leia said, “He did.”   
She slides the box and the paper over to him. He takes the box first, and he’s not sure why his usually surgeon-study hands are shaking.   
“It’s been scanned, of course,” Leia said.   
Poe nodded.   
Inside the nondescript brown box is a small black box, sealed neatly with string. Poe unties it, somewhat unnecessarily anxious to see what’s in it, like a child receiving a present, though of course he knows it’s the ring.   
And it is, sitting in the box on a folded piece of fabric, he takes the ring out. The chain the ring was on had had a small knot in it for a couple of years, one that Poe had never been able to untie and had never quite felt like replacing the chain, as it had been with him since his mother’s death. Hux must have smoothed it out, because it was perfect now, and Poe could imagine that his long, thin fingers would be good at such a thing.   
He slips his necklace over his head, the familiar weight a great comfort, and takes a look at the letter. 

_General Organa, (_ it read)  
 _Contained is the property of Poe Dameron. It is his request that it be returned to his father._  
 _I would be appreciative if you could see to this._  
 _ ~~Yours~~_  
 _Regards,_  
 _General Armitage Hux_

Poe smirked, and folded the note with its endearing untidy handwriting, and pocketed it.   
Leia watched him carefully.   
“I wonder why he felt it so necessary to pass it on to me?” She said.   
It was a leading question.   
“I guess he didn’t want to deny a prisoner his last request,” Poe said.   
“I’ve spoken to him before, he’s never struck me as sentimental.”   
“You’ve met Hux?”   
Leia cocks her head to one side, Poe doesn’t need her mind-reading skills to realise he has sounded oddly eager.   
“I’ve had the…pleasure of speaking to him through the Holonet,” Leia said, “As well as certain dealings with his father.”   
“Right,” Poe said, “Well, I can’t say I’m not surprised that he went through with it.”   
“I suppose,” Leia said, “People can be very surprising, if you allow them to be.”   
Poe nodded, touches the case and the note in his pocket.   
“How are you, Poe?” Leia said, “And please don’t insult me by saying ‘fine’.”   
“I’m tired,” Poe said, honestly, “And a little pissed off at myself.”   
“You were reckless,” Leia said, “You have more than enough reasons to be pissed off at yourself.”  
“I know,” Poe said, “I’m sorry that I messed up.”   
“It was as much ours as it was yours. You should take a break,”   
“A break? Now?”  
“Yes, now,” Leia said.   
“No, I have to look for BB-8,” Poe said, “I’m not spending another week locked up.”   
Leia shook her head.   
“I’m not giving you a choice here, Poe,” Leia said, “We have people looking for BB-8.”  
“So you’re grounding me?”   
Leia gave a parental sigh.   
“I’m giving you a weeks suspension,” Leia said, “To get our new compatriot used to things here, help him settle in, and, above all, to recover.”  
“I’ve already booked a time-slot with the counsellor,” Poe says, sullenly, but it’s a weak objection. He could probably happily sleep for a week.   
“Fine,” Poe says, like he had any other option, “After a week, if BB-8’s not back, I’m going out there.”   
“Of course,” Leia said, “I’ll wave you off.

****  
  


Poe does not like being grounded. It feels like being a prisoner all over again. Reasonably, he knows this is not the case, and, reasonably, he knows he needs it. He has a holo-call with his Dad, he speaks to a counsellor, attends a group meeting like the ones he used to go to when his mom died.   
He doesn’t bring up Hux. Not to the counsellor, and absolutely not in group.   
He doesn’t mention him to Finn again, not after the first night, and, despite Rose attempting to rib him into spilling who his secret First Order lover was, he doesn’t tell her, either.   
She’s a fairly accepting person, but he doesn’t think she’ll be very happy about this one.   
He and Finn spend a lot of time in the hangar, Poe wistfully watching his old crew come and go, and Finn getting to know everybody.   
And, mercifully, everyone seems to like Finn.   
That’s a bit of an understatement, actually, because they’re all totally fascinated by him, about what things are really like, about what it’s like to be a stormtrooper practically from birth.   
Finn tries to deflect some of the attention. Soon, he’s got his own friends, and they train together, all of them impressed by Finn’s blaster skills. Poe is pleased, if antsy. He can’t spend much time with his friends. They’re all too busy, doing the things that Poe should be doing.   
He helps Rose out with maintenance. When her sister is around, he and Finn eat lunch and sometimes dinner with them, sometimes stay up late, have a couple of drinks (whatever alcohol has been smuggled on base) and play cards. Finn wins at cards a lot, and Poe is convinced he was only pretending to have never played a game before, though Finn keeps insisting it’s true.   
All the while, there are thoughts of BB-8, and Hux, and everything that is going on. Poe has never felt this useless in his life.

***

Poe is alone in his room. Finn is talking with a counsellor, and it’s the first time in a few days that Poe has been alone for more than a handful of minutes.   
He’s been mostly happy for the company - the cycles he spent in the cell in the bowels of the Finalizer had left him wanting for human interaction - and there had only been brief moments where he’d wanted some time alone. But now, he wants Finn to come back.   
Usually he’d have BB-8 to talk to. And that’s another thing that has been grinding on him.   
They’d barely even heard anything about BB, though Leia had been passing any updates about the search for him to Poe.   
He was still grounded for another couple of days. Then he and Finn would head out on the search for BB.   
The only silver lining was that it seemed that Kylo Ren also hadn’t been able to get his hands on BB-8, which was just about the only thing keeping Poe from disobeying Leia and setting out back to the star destroyer to snatch him back.   
Thinking about it made him take out another cigarette from Hux’s case.   
This one was different.   
Poe was fine smoking whatever it was he could get his hands on - he had no preference for brand, didn’t care where the tobacco came from. Hux smoked an expensive kind, slim and white apart from a thin gold band near the filter.   
This was not one of those, in fact, it contained no filter, and the paper felt oddly thick in his hands.   
Poe twisted it in his hands, thumbing at the glue it was closed with, and he peels gently at it. Tobacco falls to the ground like dirty snow, and he shakes it out when he notices dark markings on the paper, which has been folded.   
At first glance it seems like nonsense, but Poe knows Hux better than that.   
In familiarly lopsided writing appeared: _3nCrypTalk - 507893, Q94298_.   
He rifled through his satchel for his own battered datapad and searched on the Holonet for 3nCryptTalk, which required the first of the passwords to even download, before requesting his name. He tries Poe Dameron, first, and then Xera Grus, and when both fail he tries Armitage Hux, none of which grant him excess and he is threatened with a message that tells him if he gets it wrong, he will be locked out forever. It does give him a clue, however, demanding just five characters.   
He strokes at his stubble while he thinks.   
P E T E R, he finally types, and he’s asked for yet another code.   
Thankfully, this one is simply the second alphanumeric code, which leads him to messaging page.   
He types and deletes a message about eight times before settling for a simple: 

_Hi! Hux?_  
The reply was almost instant.   
  
_Took you long enough._

  
_Miss me already?_   
_I got my ring back._   
_Thanks._   
_You have bad handwriting._   
_Hux?_

Hux does not reply for a few hours, when he does, Poe is trying to sleep. When his Datapad gives off a little bleep, he tries to ignore it and listen to Finn’s snores instead. 

  
_Yes._

  
_Yes you miss me, or yes you have terrible handwriting?_

  
_I want to meet._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As usual, thank you so so so much for leaving comments, kudos, and for reading. It sounds soppy but those emails really do make my day!


	14. Drawing Dead

Hux watches Dameron look for him for a few minutes before tipping his hat up so Dameron can catch sight of his hair. He’d borrowed a few items of clothing on the way to the tacky bar that Dameron had wanted to meet at, changing in the room he’d acquired at the (better) hotel across the street.   
The bar was gaudy, ugly, inside and out. The walls and floors and even the ceiling were all painted purple and red, and the furniture was all oddly shaped, with neither form nor function in mind, and the bar was far too crowded to do what he’d came here to do.   
When Dameron recognises him, the corners of his mouth twitch. Hux lowers the cap again and Dameron turns to the bar, orders, and comes over to the table carrying two lime-green drinks.   
“General Hugs,” he said, voice low beneath the truly heinous muzak that was playing.   
“How long have you been waiting to use that one?”   
“Three to four months,” Dameron says, smiling in the way that means Hux has to fight not smile back.   
Dameron pushes one of the drinks towards him.   
“I don’t drink,” Hux said.   
“It’s non-alcoholic.”  
Hux makes no move to taste it, doesn’t really believe Dameron. People he’s trusted more have lied to him about pettier things.  
“I wouldn’t lie about that,” Dameron says, “I promise.”  
Dameron takes a sip of his own drink, and then looks him up and down.   
“Nice outfit,” he said, “Steal it from a custodian?”   
“A mechanic, actually,” Hux said.   
“Suits you,” Dameron said, “Have you considered a change of career? Something less fascistic, maybe?”   
“As what? A mechanic for a terrorist organisation? Though, I suppose, ‘organisation’ is rather a strong word for the menagerie of scum and assorted freaks you call a Resistance.”   
“Which am I? Scum or an assorted freak?”   
“I’d hazard a guess at a bit of both,” Hux said, “Of course I don’t really know you at all.”   
For the first time, Dameron looks actually hurt by something Hux had said.   
“You know me better than a lot of people I’ve known for years longer than you,” Dameron said.  
“I’ve no way of knowing that you’re anything other than a liar,” Hux said, “A liar and spy who stole an identity and defiled the memory of a man who died with honours in order to get close to me so I’d spill all my secrets and give your little resistance the advantage.”   
“No,” Dameron said, “I was telling the truth. Obviously, not about my name and that, but…pretty much everything else. Stuff that matters. And everyone told me not to even speak to you, let alone have sex with you. No-one thought you’d tell me anything. The only information you did give me was that you were building a super-weapon.”   
Hux was usually good at knowing when he was being lied to. He felt like he was being twisted in every way. Dameron certainly seemed convincing, but perhaps that was just what Hux wanted to believe? Wanted to believe that he really wasn’t seen as a weak, pathetic joke to the entire galaxy, so sad and desperate that he’d clearly give out information to any handsome man willing to pay him attention.   
“What do your people know about us?” Hux said.   
Dameron was shaking his head before Hux had finished the question.   
“Nothing, I swear,” Dameron said, “Well, I mean, Finn was there with us, so, you know, he knows something, and Rose knows I was sleeping with someone in the First Order, but not that it was you, and I didn’t tell her, she just guessed.”   
Dameron has finished his drink, Hux pushes his own towards him.   
“And Organa?”  
“She thinks it’s kinda weird that you sent my ring back,” Dameron said, “Which, thank you, truly, by the way, but she doesn’t seem to suspect anything.”   
“She didn’t…?” Hux gestures towards his head.   
Dameron catches on quickly.   
“She wouldn’t do that,” he said, “In the Resistance, we don’t go barging into people’s heads without permission.”   
“You wouldn’t know,” Hux said, snippily, “She’s very experienced. They don’t have to let you know they’re there, not if they don’t want you to.”  
Dameron gives him a look that’s irritatingly pitying.   
“She wouldn’t. I know Leia.”   
“You think you do,” Hux said, more to have the last word. Dameron picks up Hux’s drink and takes a sip.   
“How’s your head?”   
Hux asked, but he hadn’t planned to show that much concern for Dameron. He’d forgotten, again, to monitor his tone.  
“What?”  
“After Ren,” Hux said, “How do you feel?”  
“Tired,” Dameron said, “I spent the last week doing next to nothing and I’m still tired.”  
“I’m sorry,” Hux said, “That I didn’t help you leave before he got his hands on you.”  
“It wouldn’t have ended well for you,” Dameron said, “You did what you could.”   
Whilst still looking after yourself, remains unsaid.   
“I have a room booked across from here,” Hux said, “It’ll be more private.”

**

They get to Hux’s room within a couple of minutes.   
Hux takes of the horrible utility jacket and cap and Dameron makes himself comfortable on Hux’s bed.  
“It’s nicer than the room I got,” Dameron said.  
“Do you have my cigarettes?” Hux said.   
Dameron nods and takes the case from his pocket, throwing it deftly towards Hux.  
Hux opens the case, can’t really had his smirk.   
“You kept this?” He holds up the letter he’d Organa.   
“Yeah,” Dameron says, looking up at Hux through his eyelashes.   
He has beautiful eyelashes, long and dark in a way the some would resort to cosmetics to achieve.   
“Why?”  
“Well,” Dameron said, licking his lip, “I read it before I found the cig. Thought it might have some hidden meaning.”  
“Now I know you’re lying.”  
“Fine,” Dameron said, “I thought I’d never see you again and I wanted something nice to remember you by.”   
“I didn’t send it to be nice,” Hux said.  
“Doesn’t matter what you meant,” said Dameron, “I’ve decided it was nice.”  
Hux sits down on the bed, near but not quite beside Dameron.   
“I’m guessing, because of your little message, you always intended to let me go,”   
Hux’s face felt hot.   
“I was always considering it,” Hux said, carefully, but it didn’t do anything to dampen Dameron’s grin.   
“Now I know you’re lying,” He said, “What was your plan?”  
“I didn’t have much of one,” Hux admitted, “I didn’t think you deserved to be executed, that’s all. And if you did, then I certainly did.”  
“So you really came here, and dragged me half-way across the galaxy, to get laid?”  
“Actually,” Hux said, he lets the blade slide out, “I came because I wanted to kill you.”   
He hands the blade over to Dameron, who takes it with a fairly absent-minded expression on his face.  
“Really?”   
Hux nods.   
“And?”  
“I’ve decided I don’t want to do it,” Hux said. He smooths the sheets beneath his hands.  
“Gee, thanks,” Dameron said, he holds the blade strangely, as if it was an entirely foreign object in his hands, “Do you want the truth about why I came?”  
Hux nodded.   
“I was going to knock you out, call Finn to pick us up and drag you back to the Resistance base.”   
Hux snorts, laughs, laughs until his ribs his hurt and he’s sure he’s unattractively red in the face.   
Dameron looks at him as though the last dregs of sanity have finally left him.   
“I don’t know why you’re laughing,” Dameron said, corners of his mouth twitching.   
“Oh come on, Dameron, it’s funny.”  
“I don’t see how,” Dameron says, “You’re laughing because you want to kill me?”  
“I’m laughing because I can’t,” Hux said, “And besides, what were you’re going to do to me? Drug me?”  
“No,” Dameron said, “I knew that wouldn’t work. I think I was just gonna knock you out again.”  
“And then what? Your people would want me imprisoned for the rest of my life, surely?”   
Dameron shrugged.   
“Look, I don’t think either of us has thought out our plans very well,” Dameron said.   
“Clearly,” Hux said, trying to suppress the urge to continue laughing, “Do you still want to have sex or have I quelled that desire with my murderous intentions?”   
Hux leaves the bed to pace the room, and Dameron watches him.  
“I want to eat first,” Dameron said, “Then sex.”  
Hux opens his duffel bag and offers a nutrition bar to Dameron.   
“No, thanks,” Dameron said, “I can’t stand those things.”  
“Then starve,” Hux said, simply, sitting down on the armchair facing the bed.   
Dameron led back on the bed and sighed.   
“There’s a minibar,” Hux said, biting into a nutrition bar, “Help yourself.”  
He wasn’t planning on paying for any of it, anyway. Dameron eagerly gets up from the bed and starts to rifle through the minibar cupboard, throwing his selection behind him onto the bed.   
“Do you want anything?”   
“No,” Hux said.   
“I forgot that you don’t like flavour.”   
Hux rolled his eyes and finished eating the nutrition bar.  
“That much sugar is for children,” Hux said, as Dameron begins to open what would pass as a meal.   
Dameron scoffed, looked like he was going to argue with him but continues to eat instead.   
Hux takes out his Datapad to distract himself, sends a message to Mitaka and one to Phasma.   
Dameron gives him a judgemental look when he catches him. Hux ignores him, and starts look at defunct plans, feeling far too awkward to just watch Dameron.   
“Hux.”  
“Hm?”   
“Are you busy?”   
“Yes,” he lied, shutting off the Datapad.   
Dameron smirks at him in a knowing, cocky way.   
“What is it you want?” Hux said.   
“Hey, you invited me,” Dameron said, frustratingly.   
“Then take off your clothes.”  
“You’re not going to make me shower first?”  
“No,” He’d already considered that, “You smell reasonably clean.”   
“Reasonably?’ Dameron said, as he began to unbutton his shirt, “I’ll take that as high praise.”  
“You should,” Hux said.   
He stripped the boiler suit off of himself, as it was quite possibly the ugliest piece of clothing he’d worn, and went back to join Dameron on the bed, sweeping the wrappers onto the floor and lightly pushing Dameron into the headboard.  
“You know,” Dameron said, “I kind of miss your uniform.”   
Dameron touches a bruise, Hux grinds his teeth.   
“This…”  
“Don’t look so forlorn, Dameron,” Hux said, “I’ve had much worse.”  
“It looks painful,”  
“It’s fine, when nobody’s prodding at it.”  
“Right,” Dameron said, bright as ever, “Sorry.”  
Hux struggled with Dameron’s pants, pulling them down and then slowly working his way back up with his mouth. 

***  
“How many people have you slept with?”   
They’d been laying in the bed, a mass of sweaty, tangled limbs and sheets, talking but not really saying anything.   
There were quite obviously more topics that were off the table than were on the table, and still almost everything they said descended rather quickly into soft, half-hearted bickering.   
“I don’t know,” Hux said.   
“You don’t know?”  
“I wasn’t aware I should be keeping track,” Hux said, “How many people have you slept with?”  
“You’re number eight,” Dameron said.   
“Is that all?”   
Dameron laughed softly.   
“What’s that supposed to mean?” He said, moving onto his side to take a look at Hux.   
“I’d have thought more,” Hux said, “You’re very good-looking.”   
“I know,” Dameron grinned, “But I like a long-term relationship. The same person every night.”   
Hux snorted.   
“So, come on, more or less than mine?” Dameron said.   
“More,” Hux said.   
“More or less than fifteen?” Dameron persisted.   
“More,” Hux said, “Does this matter?”   
“I’m a curious guy,” Dameron said, “More than thirty?”  
“I’ve never slept with the same person twice, before you,” Hux said, surprising himself with his honesty.   
“Well, that’s flattering,” Dameron said, “Forty?”   
“Just the times I wanted it?”   
He’d meant it flippantly, but Dameron didn’t smile in the way he’d expected him to.   
“Kriff, Hux,” he said, “Of course just the times you wanted it.”   
Dameron was watching him intently, concern and pity in those lovely eyes.   
“I’ve rather ruined the moment, haven’t I?”   
“I’m just,” Dameron said, blinking quickly and sitting up in the bed properly, “Surprised. We can talk about it, if you want?”   
“Stars, no,” Hux said, “Why are you so surprised? I didn’t think you were that naive. I was an unsupervised young boy on an old Imperial Star Destroyer, overcrowded with men who had no families and no other means to… repose themselves.”  
“That’s not right - ”  
“I didn’t say it was right, Dameron, it was just inevitable. And I didn’t help myself, I was very stupid about the whole situation.”   
Dameron grumbled something under his breath.   
“I’m sorry,” Hux said, “I really didn’t mean to start this conversation. I thought I was being funny.”   
“It’s not funny,” Dameron said, a little cool.   
“Yes, I can see that now,” Hux said, and sighed.   
They fell into silence for what felt like a very long time. Dameron settled back down into the bed eventually, but now Hux felt stiff.   
Dameron was far too easy to talk to, and all talking ever did was get one into trouble.   
“Why am I the only one you’ve slept with more than once?” Dameron said.   
I was bored, he wanted to say, just to be cruel.   
If he was telling the truth, he didn’t know.  
“You didn’t seem to care who I was,” Hux said, “Obviously, now, that’s not true.”   
“So why now?”  
“You’ve grown on me.”   
“Did you go to charm school?”   
“What?”   
Dameron moved closer to him once more, touches his hair.   
“I mean, you’re being so charming,” Dameron said, “Really flattering.”  
Hux frowned.   
“Are you being sarcastic?”   
“Yeah, Hugs,” Dameron said, “Just a little.”   
“Don’t call me that,” Hux said, “And like your reasons for continuing our meetings are so pure.”  
“It doesn’t matter what my reasons are,” Dameron said, “You don’t believe me.”   
“Because you’re a liar.”   
“No, I told you. I slept with you the first time because I found you attractive, then I liked you, now I - ”  
“Don’t say it, Dameron,” Hux said.   
They drifted back into silence, and the curtains fluttered in the breeze. Hux wanted to get out of bed and close the window, but he was worried if he was move he’d not get so close to Dameron again.   
“How long do you have here?”   
“A few days. Finn is covering for me,” Dameron said.  
“Am I supposed to know who that is?”   
“Yep,” Poe said, “The stormtrooper who knocked you out.”  
“Hm,” Hux said, “Why did you come? Other than a vague attempt at kidnapping.”  
“I wanted to see you, too,” Dameron said, “I regret leaving you. How long do you have?”  
“Two cycles,” Hux said, “Including today.”   
“We should be normal,” Dameron says, sleepily, “Tomorrow. We should go out, not be ourselves, and pretend to be normal. No wars, no sides, just for a day.”   
“Alright,” Hux is surprised to hear himself saying, “Just for a day.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> idk about this one...but...thank you for reading!


	15. Hit Me!

Poe wakes up, and, for a moment, he thinks Hux has left him. He’s bleary-eyed, stiff-necked, and, until door off the refresher opens, a tiny bit angry.   
“Hugs,” he says, enjoys the annoyed little expression that passes across Hux’s face when he says it.   
“What,” Hux says, grumpily.   
He’s fully dressed in a white long-sleeved t-shirt with the jumpsuit from yesterday half-on, the arms of it tied in a way that emphasises how slender his waist really is, in a way that not even the belt of his uniform did. His hair is damp, un-styled.  
“Nothing,” Poe said, “Just, good-morning. Weather’s nice.”  
“Is it?” Hux said, gazing out of the window towards the streaming-sunlight like he hadn’t even noticed it had risen.   
“Did you sleep okay?” Poe said.   
Hux nodded, “Did you?”  
“Great, actually,” Poe said, kicking the sheets away from himself and picking his abandoned shirt up from the floor, “I’m Poe.”  
“I know,” Hux said, eyebrows knitting together, “Are you sure you slept okay?”  
Poe gives out a loud, melodramatic sigh.  
“I’m Poe, I teach at the local flight school.”   
“Oh,” Hux said, “We’re still doing this?”  
“Yep,” Poe said.   
“I’d hoped you’d forgotten,” Hux said.   
He sits in the armchair and crosses his legs, in a lazy, uncharacteristic way.   
“Sorry, baby, last night was great but I can’t place a name to your pretty face,” Poe said.   
Hux’s jaw tightened, and Poe is not sure whether it is with irritation or at the compliment, but he’d like to think it was both.   
“Armitage,” he said.   
“Right, so, what do you do for a living?” Poe says, “And remember: no militaries. No government positions. No being an emperor.”  
“So you still get to fly but I don’t get to do anything I want?”   
“Exactly. It’s just the rules for the day,” Poe said, “What do you want to do?”  
“I don’t know, Dameron,” Hux said, shortly.   
He uncrossed and then crossed his legs again.   
“Poe,” Poe said.   
“Poe,” Hux repeated, “This game is stupid.”  
“Well, you agreed to it. One day, nineteen-hours,” Poe said, “Oh, you could be a plumber, you already got the outfit.”  
“No,” Hux said, “I’ll be an engineer, I work at the same flight school as you. That’s how we met.”   
“If we work together, how come we’ve never noticed each other before?”  
“I noticed you,” Hux said, “You never noticed me.”   
“Why not?”  
“You’re very busy, I’m very boring.”  
“Nah,” Poe said, “If a guy like you had been around the hangar, I would’ve noticed.”  
“You were too busy checking yourself out,” Hux said, “I thought you’d never drag your eyes away from your own reflection.”  
“That’s not fair,” Poe said, “I was totally looking at you, you were just too concerned with being up yourself.”  
“If you say so,” Hux said,   
“Okay, maybe being different people was a bad idea,” Poe said.   
“Just because you can’t get a story straight,” Hux said, “I’m going out for a cigarette.”   
“Great, me too,” Poe said, buttoning his pants, “Then we can head to my hotel room. I need to pick something up.”   
“You’re staying here again?” Hux said.   
“If you don’t mind,” Poe said, “I booked a really shitty hotel.”   
Poe finishes dressing and strides over to where Hux is still sitting, weaving a cigarette around his long fingers. Poe puts his hands in Hux’s hair, runs his fingers through it.   
It surprises him that Hux doesn’t make a show of pulling away.   
“I definitely would’ve noticed you.”

**

After moving Poe’s bag to Hux’s room, Poe drags him off to breakfast. He’s been to the small city before, knows the good places to eat.   
Hux puts up a tepid fight, insists he doesn’t want breakfast, and if Poe did then they could order room service, but as he’s saying it he’s following Poe out the door and back into the elevator.   
Poe takes him to a small, family-owned restaurant not far from Hux’s hotel.   
Hux doesn’t look entirely comfortable, looking around at the cosy decor with barely concealed disgust on his face, visible even with the hat he’s wearing.   
“You don’t like teashops?” Poe said.   
“I don’t like kitsch.”  
“The woman who runs it is a sweetheart,” Poe said, “It’s been in her family for nearly a hundred years.”  
“Yes, from the wallpaper, I’d guessed that,” Hux said.   
A hostess greets them after a few seconds of waiting.   
“Table for two?”   
“Please,” Poe said, and looks around the busy breakfast room, “Got anything someplace quieter? My boyfriend isn’t great with crowds.”  
“Of course, follow me,” said the hostess, looking at Hux with wide, sympathetic purple eyes.   
Hux elbows Poe in the ribs.   
She leads them up a flight of narrow stairs into an empty room, more sparsely decorated that the one downstairs, but still very cream and pink and flowery.   
She gives them menus and promises to return in a few minutes, rushing back down the stairs.   
Hux glares at him as they sit down.   
“Boyfriend isn’t good with crowds?”   
“I know we’ve only known each other a day, but she didn’t need to know that,” Poe said, “You would prefer to sit down there?”   
Hux looked around the empty room before silently turning to his menu, eyes narrowing as he read.   
When the waitress returned Hux only ordered tea, while Poe took a lot of joy in ordering a couple of courses, especially after the paltry food he’d eaten the night before.   
“Is that it?” Poe said, when she left.   
“I don’t eat breakfast,” Hux said.   
“Why not?”   
“I don’t like it.”  
“You don’t like breakfast,” Poe said, and eyebrow raised, “Any breakfast?”   
“I don’t like breakfast,” Hux said.   
“Breakfast is the best,” Poe said, “Have you had a good breakfast before? Pancakes? Fried meat? Fried bread? Fried fruit?”   
“Fried fruit?”  
“Yeah, on pancakes,” Poe said, “With cream, and sugar.”   
“It’s far too early,” Hux said, looking sick.   
If he looked nauseous at the prospect of the food, he looked particularly ill when the waitress returned, carrying a tray in each of her four arms.   
Hux poured himself tea.  
Poe pushes some toast over to him.   
“We’re going on a walk,” Poe said, “You should eat something.”  
“A walk?”   
“Yeah, Hu - Armitage, outside. Remember outside?”   
Poe starts to eat the meat on his plate, Hux wrinkles his nose in distaste.   
“Where are we walking?”  
“You’ll like it,” Poe said, “And if you won’t, Armitage will.”   
Hux pours himself tea from the little teapot.  
“You know Cuth? He visited me a couple of times when I was locked up,” Poe said.  
It’d been playing on his mind a little. He was worried - he wished Cuth had been around when he and Finn had made their escape.   
“Yes, I’m aware of that,”  
“Was it…wrong of him?”  
“Only troopers were supposed to have access to you,” Hux said, “And myself and Kylo Ren. He’s lucky he wasn’t caught. If he was - ”  
“He didn’t get in trouble, did he? You haven’t - ”  
“He’s not dead. Do you really think I - ” Hux holds one finger up and shakes his head, “Don’t answer that.”  
“You wouldn’t. Kylo Ren might think I told him something.”   
“Ren doesn’t think,” Hux said, bitterly, “I edited some of the security footage. Well, I had Mitaka do it.”  
“You trust Mitaka?”  
“More than I trust you,”  
“Honest, but a little cruel.”  
“I like you more,” Hux said, “I thought that we weren’t on sides today.”  
“You’re right,” Poe said, “I was just concerned for him.”  
Hux smiles at him, bites at the corner of the toast.  
“I hear he was rather happy that you got away,” Hux said, “I won’t being going out of my way to protect him, if he so decides to be reckless.”   
“And yet here you are,” Poe said, “Being reckless.”  
“You inspire that in people,” Hux said.   
“You think I’m inspiring,” Poe says, and Hux rolls his eyes.   
Poe refills his coffee cup.   
“Are you sure that’s all you’re eating?”   
“Quite sure,” Hux said, “You really shouldn’t eat all that sugar. It’s not healthy.”   
“Like you’re the one who should be lecturing me on health,” Poe said.   
“I’m in perfectly good health,” Hux said, “I’m not me, remember?”  
Poe concedes, continues eating his meal, even if he’s made more than slightly uncomfortable by the intense way Hux is watching him. 

Poe wants to take Hux to the Orange Seas. It’s not actually a real sea, it’s gigantic salt lake, and the water itself isn’t orange, it’s something to do with the vegetation that grows beneath it. Still, Poe has been there before and he’d found it beautiful and romantic, even when he’d been alone.  
It’s not a horribly long walk, but it’s humid out and Hux is layered up like he’s on Hoth.   
He doesn’t complain, and they take most of the walk in silence. It’s not a bad sort of silence, and Hux doesn’t pull away when Poe grabs his hand.   
When they arrive at the lake and find a rock to sit on, they sit close together, almost huddled, despite the sticky heat of the air.  
“When I was young,” Poe said, “My Dad used to read me a book about a mermaid who lived in a lake like this. I really thought they were real for the longest time. Every time we’d go near any body of water, I’d look for mermaids. Open my eyes underwater, even if the water stung. Nothing my parents could say could convince me that they weren’t. I was kind of embarrassingly old when I accepted they didn’t exist.”   
“Mermaids are real,” Hux said, quietly.   
“What?” Poe said.   
“Mermaids are real,” Hux said again, “I’ve seen one.”  
“You’ve seen one?”   
“And tasted one,” Hux said.  
“Tasted - Hux, you’re lying, aren’t you?”   
He looks at Hux for the hint of a smile, but his face is as pale and impassive as ever.   
“Of course not,” Hux said, “They’re an invasive species in the seas of Arkanis.”  
“I - no, they’re not,” Poe said, but he doesn’t know anything about Arkanis, “Are you serious?”  
“Completely,” Hux said, “They consume much more than is necessary, and throw the whole eco-system out of balance. And they drown fisher-people.”  
“So you ate them?”  
“I didn’t personally instigate the trend, no,” Hux said, “But I have tried it. They became something of a delicacy and my Stepmother did like to show off.”  
“But aren’t they like, half-people? Isn’t that cannibalism?”   
“Only if you have a very loose definition of the word,” Hux said, “You should try it, one day.”   
“I’m not eating mermaid,” Poe said.   
“Why not? One would eat you.”   
“What do they taste like?”   
“Prawns,” Hux said, and this time Poe spots the corners of his lips twitch and softly swats him in the ribs.   
“You are lying,” Poe said, “I believed you!”   
“It’s utterly true,” Hux said, “Ask anybody from Arkanis.”  
“You’re the only person from Arkanis I know!” Poe said, irritated.   
He looked back out towards the lake, and thought about how different the stories his parents had read to him would have been if they’d ended with the mermaids or other mystical creatures getting served up on a plate.   
“Can you swim?” Hux said, suddenly.   
“Yeah,” Poe said, “But that sign says no swimming.”  
Hux takes his hat off, runs a hand through his hair.   
“There’s no-one around. And I’d never thought you’d be the type to let a sign tell you what to do.”   
Hux stood up and started to peel off his many layers.   
“I’m not,” He said, regretting how easily egged on he is, “You’re not gonna try and drown me, are you?”   
“It’s unlikely,” Hux said.   
Poe barely has time to admire Hux’s naked body before he disappears into the water, and so he quickly undresses himself and follows Hux in.   
Hux swims better than Poe would have guessed, in a natural, elegant sort of way. He’s perhaps stronger than he looks. Poe still catches up with him quickly, showing off his butterfly stroke a bit.   
He has to admit it was a good idea, because the water is cool but not cold, completely refreshing compared to the oppressively hot land.   
Hux stops swimming when they’re quite a a distance away from the land, and Poe comes to a halt just after him, wetting his hair under water and popping up directly in front of Hux.   
Hux smiles, his face is a little pink: maybe from the sun, the exertion of the swim, or maybe it’s just a blush as he raises his hand and cups Poe’s cheek, running a thumb against his lips.   
“I’m sorry for kissing you,” Poe said. Rather, blurts out.   
“Pardon?”   
Hux slips his hand away from Poe’s face abruptly.   
“When we left,” Poe said, “It was literally one of two things you asked me not to do.”  
“It’s alright,” Hux said, voice soft and flimsy, “It was rather childish.”   
Poe chewed on his words carefully, piecing together sentences that never left his mouth.   
“It was just because I hadn’t kissed anyone before. Other things, obviously, but not kissing,” Hux said, “I wanted to choose who I would kiss first.”  
“That makes me feel worse,” Poe said.   
“It’s not supposed to,” Hux said, “I would’ve have chosen you.”   
“Really?”   
“Yes,” Hux said.  
“Are we still pretending?”   
“No,” Hux said, “I’m glad we kissed.”  
“Good,” Poe said, “Next time I’ll ask.”  
“You can do whatever you want,” Hux said, “Kiss me, hit me, I don’t care.”  
Poe laughs.  
“I’ll still ask,” Poe said, placing his arms around Hux’s neck as they tread the water.   
Hux pulls him closer.   
“Ask, then.”   
“Can I kiss you?”   
“Yes,”  
Hux’s lips are wet and salty from the water, but they’re soft, and it’s altogether a much better experience than the first one, especially as this one doesn’t involve a knife to the throat, and Hux kisses him, bringing Poe closer, hands tangling Poe’s hair.   
“One more thing,” Poe says, when they break apart.  
“Hm?”  
“You don’t really eat mermaids, do you?”   
Hux laughs, and slips beneath the surface.  
There’s stillness for a couple of seconds before Poe feels a light nip at his thigh, and he lets himself slip under, too. 

**

“You could come back with me tomorrow,” Poe said, as they make their way back to the hotel.   
“No I couldn’t.”  
“The First Order will never give you what you want,” Poe said.   
“Neither will the Resistance.”  
“The difference is,” Poe said, “The Resistance isn’t going to kill you.”  
“How can you be so sure?”  
“I won’t let them.”   
“That’s kind,” Hux said, “Rather delusional, I’m afraid, but it’s kind of you.”  
“Why can’t you leave?”  
“Why can’t you leave the Resistance?”   
“Because it’s what I believe in,” Poe said.   
“The First Order is what I believe in,” Hux said, and Poe wonders if he’s convincing himself.   
“It can’t be,” Poe said, “I know you. You’re not a cruel person.”   
“Not yet,” Hux said.   
“What does that mean?”  
“The First Order wouldn’t have to be cruel if the Republic didn’t make it so,” Hux said, which was not an answer to the question that Poe asked, “And I don’t have to agree with everything that happens within the First Order to know that it’s the only way that the galaxy will be safe and peaceful.”   
“There are other ways,” Poe says, “Better ways. I don’t like the Republic - I think it’s full of greedy old assholes who have become too comfortable with the conditions they live in to think about anyone else - but the First Order is the same.”  
“The Resistance isn’t?”  
“Leia won’t let it,” Poe said, “She’s been a part of those systems before. She knows how they form, she won’t let the Resistance become complacent to evil.”   
“Evil?” Hux echoed, not looking at Poe, “Am I - ”  
“I wouldn’t be here if I thought you were,” Poe said, “If you came with me. If. You wouldn’t have the sort of power you want, and not everybody would be happy about it, but if you helped us win - and could do that, couldn’t you? More than anyone else, you could. You could still be a General.”  
“Why would I want to? I don’t believe in the free-for-all, chaotic crap that you do,” Hux said, “And it’s too late for me. Even if I did change my mind, nobody would believe it. The First Order would want me dead, people in the Resistance would still want me dead. My whole life has been the Order. People don’t change.”  
Poe disagrees, disagrees so strongly that he has to bite his tongue to stop himself from snapping at Hux.   
“My mom died when I was thirteen,” Poe says, “I was kind of an asshole to my Dad for a few years. I was so angry.”   
Hux touches the top of Poe’s hand lightly.   
“When did you stop being angry?”   
“I don’t know,” Poe said, “It was like waking up from a two-year sleep. I felt awful about my Dad. He was having a real tough time, too, and I just made it harder. I knew she’d be so disappointed in me and I couldn’t stand it.”   
“And then what?”   
“Decided I’d dedicate the rest of my life to making the her proud,” Poe said, “My dad, too, of course, but flying was always my mom’s thing.”   
“She was a Rebel?”   
“Yes,” Poe said, in a carefully measured way, thinking he wouldn’t be able to bare it if Hux followed it up with an insult.  
“Then I’m sure you’d have made her very proud by now,” Hux said, instead, and moved his hand away.   
“My point was,” Poe said, “I did change.”   
“It’s not the same thing,” Hux said, “You were a good person that acted like a brat for a couple of years. I’ve always been like this. All I wanted when I was a child was enough power that no-one would question me.”  
Poe shakes his head, they arrive back at the hotel and go up to their room in an uncomfortable silence that makes Poe feel cold.   
“What was your mother’s name?” Hux said, as he lets them back in their room.   
“Shara.”   
“What do you think of, when someone says her name?”   
“Her laugh,” Poe said, “Almost every memory I have we were laughing. The first time she taught me how to fly. What about your mom?”   
“I don’t want to discuss her,” Hux said, “Not now.”  
“Did you have anyone?” Poe said, “I know your Dad wasn’t exactly winning parenting awards.”   
He says quietly enough that Hux could easily pretend not to hear the question.   
Poe sits on the bed and kicks off his boots, and Hux sits on the armchair.   
“I had Grand Admiral Sloane. She was hardly a caring figure but I respected her more than my father,” Hux said, “And Phasma, I suppose she was my first friend. Before I went into training I would follow the engineers and maintenance crew about. I’d insist I was helping but I’m sure I was getting in their way, not that they ever let me know it. One of them, Gregor, he’s retired now, I sent him the ring and he sent it on to Organa. I had people.”   
“I’m glad,” Poe said.   
“You’re not, you think if I had a completely miserable childhood there would be some excuse for how terrible I am,” Hux said, “But I had plenty of opportunities. I could have been a good person.”  
“You still can,” said Poe.  
This time, Hux really does ignore him. 

**

Poe wakes up slowly. He feels, rather than sees Hux move around the room. He’s half paying attention to the sound of water running out of the shower, someone in the next room coughing, but he stays cocooned in the warm sheets.   
Then he hears the door open for Hux to leave. He’s not surprised that Hux doesn’t say goodbye, but he still doesn’t let him go without comment.   
“Where are you going?” Poe said, sleepily, face still pressed into the pillow.   
“Hosnian system.”  
“Now?”   
“Four days time,” Hux said, “They could do with a warning.”  
The door swings shut before Poe catches up with what he was saying, and sits up in bed.  
Hux is gone, and Poe gets up out bed and rushes outside the door in pyjama pants and little else.   
Hux is already gone, the hallways are clear.   
Poe turns back into the room, but the door has locked behind him.   
He has to trail down to the front desk. Thankfully, the host at the desk is bored and tired and uninterested in finding out whether or not Poe actually belongs to the room he’s requesting access to.   
When he’s let back in he dresses quickly and sends a few messages, to Leia, to Finn, and finally one to Hux. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Are mermaids really real or is Hux lying? IDK, that one is up to you.  
> I think canonically Poe's mother dies when he's younger but there we go.   
> Thank you for reading, thank you for any kudos and thank you for comments!


	16. Dead Man's Hand

Hux gets a message from Dameron before he has even reached his shuttle, but he refuses, on some confused principle that he can’t describe, to look at until halfway through his journey. 

_THE RESISTANCE THANKS YOU FOR YOUR ASSISTANCE :D_

Hux rolls his eyes at the message and shuts down the Datapad entirely.   
He did not tell Dameron the target of Starkiller to be good, to help the Resistance, or to assuage whatever guilt Dameron might think he was capable of feeling.   
It was simply and honestly that Snoke had ignored his advice about how best to go about it. Hux had, not out of kindness, wanted to give the Hosnian system one last chance to surrender, and he’d wanted to do it publicly. He didn’t want Starkiller to look like a sneaky, surprise attack but to have it look like a response. A consequence.   
This what Hux was for. This is how he was supposed to be useful to Snoke, who knew nothing of military matters, who was barely human and knew less still about how people were going to react.   
Firing unprovoked wasn’t going to bring order, but more chaos (perhaps that was the Supreme Leader wanted - it certainly seemed to be what Ren wanted). It had to be their fault.  
Hux feels safe in having passed this information on, regardless of what Dameron was going to do with it.   
Starkiller was everything to Hux, had been for years. Snoke wouldn’t suspect him of doing anything to sabotage its efficacy. Most likely, he didn’t think Hux capable of not following orders.   
That was the advantage, then, of having the reputation of being little more than a spineless, rule-loving cowardly droid of a man. 

Since leaving with his father when he was young, he’d been back to Arkanis a handful of times, and only once without his father.   
The last time, in fact, had been for his father’s funeral.   
As far as Mitaka or anyone else knew, Arkanis was where he had spent the last couple of cycles, in reality, it was a little more than a quick stop. He would need to show his face to Maratelle to make his story convincing, just in case anyone decided to check up on him. He took relatively little time off, and rarely more than one day.   
He hated Arkanis, and Maratelle’s house. His father’s house. The house that should be his, would be his, if he’d not been a bastard.   
It was a gaudy fucking thing and he wouldn’t want it if he’d been given it.   
As a son, he would’ve outranked Maratelle if he’d been born in wedlock. The sort of sentiment would make Phasma punch him, but he’d have gladly took it and kicked her out if he could. That or lorded it over her that she was living in his house for the rest of her life, just as she’d done to him.   
His father could’ve have legitimatised him in later life, but he’d proven to be far too much of a disappointment to stand to inherit. And the five page document Brendol would have had to have filled out most likely would’ve been too much work.   
So, when his father died he’d got nothing, except stuck with a tacky little legacy and one room in a house of about a hundred. 

Maratelle was what an upper-class woman on Arkanis should be. She followed fashion religiously, never worked a day in her life, and she obeyed her husband’s word like the law.   
She failed, however, in perhaps the most important way: she gave Brendol no children. Brendol’s name had carried enough weight and Maratelle’s family enough wealth that she still had a flock of fawning little friends who would visit her frequently, but Armitage had heard the way they spoke about her whenever she left the room. It was embarrassing for her. Not only that she couldn’t provide Brendol with offspring, but that Brendol had cheated, with a servant, no less, and worse, had kept the resulting bastard around. That’s how Maratelle and her friends had referred to him, even at Brendol’s funeral. What is he doing here? He’d heard one of them ask, and that was when people had still thought Brendol died of natural causes.   
Maratelle had cried, when they both left, when Brendol had refused to take her with them.   
“What are you going to do on a ship? Put up drapes?”  
“What is he going to do?” She’d cried, pointing to Armitage, hysterical: she’d never spoken to Brendol like that before.   
“He can be trained,” Brendol had said, grabbing Armitage by the wrist and pulling on him, steadfastly ignoring the way Maratelle was beating at them, clutching and grasping like she was drowning.   
“You can’t leave me,” she’d kept saying, until Brendol had finally turned around and slapped her to the floor.   
Armitage had felt sorry for her. By then he’d been hit by his father enough times to know how much it hurt. He’d never seen Brendol hit Maratelle before, even though it seemed rather obvious that it would happen: Brendol hit whomever he felt like hitting.   
She had hated Armitage before that, but in a way that was passive. She’d mostly ignore him, occasionally be sweet to him a performative way, when she wanted her friends to comment on how accepting and kind she was.   
After, though, when things had calmed down on Arkanis and he and Brendol started returning for the occasional visit (or conjugal, as Brendol had put it, and Armitage hadn’t found out what that meant for a very long time. He’d been horrified) her hatred really grew. Brendol rarely kept them there for more than a week. Once they’d stayed for almost a month, after Sloane had convinced Brendol to train Armitage and he’d started having to trail his father to meetings.   
That was an awful summer (an awful couple of years all around, with months being spent on various Outer Rim planets being ‘trained’ sometimes alone, sometimes with other future officers, all better than him, followed by months on ships, followed by months jumping between planets and systems, sitting in on boring meetings, or worse, serving Brendol and his equally nauseating friends) He hadn’t thought it would be so bad, Phasma was around by then, but Brendol had started to suspect that they were becoming friends (and friendship makes people weak, especially friendships with girls - he wonders if Brendol really hadn’t considered that boys might have a similar effect).   
Brendol had relegated him, for the most part, to Maratelle duty.   
Maratelle was just as unhappy with this arrangement as Armitage was. She would send him on long, pointless errands, picking up clothes or decor she’d ordered from shops, or hand-delivering invitations or messages to her friends (comms devices and holo-calls were déclassé, proving that you had people to do such menial tasks was a great signifier of wealth).   
When her friends were over for a dinner party, or just drinks, then he’d have to wait in corners or just outside the door, with her servants, ready to be bossed around.   
She hit him about a lot, too. Compared to Brendol it was like having a little insect land on him, more annoying than painful, but she never seemed to have any particular reason for it, where Brendol would always justify his beatings, Maratelle like to slap him whenever it would be the most humiliating for him. 

He’d not seen her in about eight years, had sent her and received from her brief correspondence. The plant, an odd little gift that was maybe a peace offering or maybe an assassination attempt, a message not long after Brendol’s death, asking him if he did it (followed by one calling him an evil, vindictive little shit, followed by one calling Brendol a piece of shit and saying how she didn’t miss him, followed by one telling him that if he ever stepped foot on Arkanis again she’d kill him, followed by a message a couple of years later, when he’d been promoted to General, asking him to visit).   
He didn’t visit. He never did. It was bad memory after bad memory, even the nice things he could remember were sandwiched by bad things, like poisoned cake. 

And now here he was, arriving at the ugly manor. He could put up with it. He’d go in, pretend to be pleasant, get what he’d hidden in his room years and years ago, and then leave. When he got back to the Finalizer, he’d tell Mitaka that Maratelle was sick and he’d left early rather than risk catching it, and then he’d go and find Phasma and make fun whatever awful thing Maratelle was inevitably going to say to him.   
He’d changed on the shuttle, throwing the borrowed clothes out of the garbage chute. He felt human again, in his uniform, though this was questionable, considering the look Maratelle’s butler, Howards, gave him when he answered the door (should be using the service entrance, like your whore of a mother).   
He stands, longer than he should let himself, in the misty rain as the butler regards him with a disgusted expression. Even the staff thought they were better than him.   
“Maratelle is expecting me,” he said.   
“Yes, Mr Hux,” The butler says, widening the door and letting him in.   
“General,” Armitage corrects. It sounds more petulant than he wanted it to.   
“Apologies, General Hux,” Howards said, and, stars, does he hate Arkanis.   
“That’s quite alright,” he said. I don’t expecting anyone on this disgusting backwater excuse of a planet to understand decorum.   
“Shall I take your coat, Sir?” Howards said, once again in a mockery of Hux’s accent.   
It was funny: Imperials thought those native to Arkanis spoke terribly common, and vice versa.   
“No,” he said. He felt he rather needed the extra protection against Maratelle, “You can take this to my room.”   
He holds out his leather duffel bag, Howards takes it like Hux is a slime-creature.   
“Where is she?”   
“Mrs Hux is in her drawing room,” Howards said, already walking away up grand staircase.   
Had Howards known his mother? Armitage can’t remember how long Howards had been there, he certainly hadn’t made an impression on his young memories. Mind, there were just a few gardeners, his mother and other kitchen workers who had.   
He doesn’t remember names, not even his mother’s.   
One of the gardeners might have been called Storm, because she had been born during one, though perhaps she’d been joking, or Hux was remembering wrong.   
The house really had gotten more ostentatious. There was gilt on everything.   
Maratelle’s drawing room was hideous. The wallpaper was even more tastelessly and busily floral than the one in the tearoom Dameron had taken him to, and, oddly, every piece of furniture in the room was wearing cream-coloured ruffle skirts.   
Maratelle was lying on a pink fainting coach, her skirts arranged about her in a very precise manner, her heeled slippers hanging just off the edge of the sofa, and she had a silk cloth folded over her eyes.   
“Allegra? Is that you?” She called out, not removing the cloth.   
Hux rolled his eyes.   
“No,” he said.   
She cranes her neck slightly, letting the silk fall from her eyes.   
“Oh, Armitage,” she said, “Would you go and fetch Allegra for me?”   
“No,” he said, “I don’t even know who that is.”   
“Then will you go and make me some tea?” Maratelle said, “You should know where the kitchens are.”   
She’d gotten the claws out in a frankly impressive amount of time.   
He hisses air through his teeth, and then she reaches up and grabs his wrist, looking up at with wide brown eyes.   
They’re not like Dameron’s brown, which are deep and full and luxuriously dark. Maratelle’s are flat, empty.   
“Will you at least get me my pain pills?” She sounds desperate, for a second, “Or is that too difficult for you?”   
“Is there anything else you need?” Armitage says, snatching his wrist out of her clammy grasp.   
“No, just rose tea and my painkillers,” she says, “And perhaps something to eat? And a blanket.”   
He swears under his breath and leaves her to go to the kitchens in the basement.   
There are two people sitting at the table, a much older woman who had seemed to have been sixty for about twenty years, and a young girl.   
“Maratelle wants tea,” Hux said.   
“Armitage,” the older woman says, standing as the girl’s eyes flicker over his uniform, “How are you?”   
“Well,” Armitage lies, “And you, Mrs…Rander?”   
She smiles at him warmly.   
“Very well, thank you. Did Mrs Hux say which tea she wanted?”   
“Rose tea,” he said, “She wanted something to eat, too, and her painkillers.”   
“Jemna, start the tea for Mrs Hux,” Mrs Rander said, “Armitage, did you want anything?”   
“No, thank you,” he said.   
Mrs Rander smiled tightly.   
“You like tarine, don’t you? We have some,” Mrs Rander said, “Jemna.”   
Jemna jumped to it, bustling around the kitchen.   
“Is there anything else?”   
“Where are Maratelle’s painkillers?” Hux said.   
“In her bathroom, I’ll get them - that Allegra of hers is just awful.”  
“I’ll get them. Who is Allegra?”  
“She’s supposed to be Maratelle’s assistant,” Mrs Rander said, shaking her head.   
“Well, thank you,” said Hux, “You’ll take this to her?”   
“Of course,” Mrs Rander, “It was nice to see you again.”   
Hux nodded at her, hoping it looked more gregarious than curt.   
He’s just made his way up to the ground floor when he runs into Howards, who gives him a narrow-eyed look.   
“Where are you going?”  
“Mrs Hux would like her painkillers. You’ll bring them to her,” he said, in his father’s voice.   
Howards looks at him like he would like to hit him, Hux smiles back.   
“Of course,” Howards said, and rushes back up the stairs, calling for Allegra.   
Armitage rejoins Maratelle in her drawing room. She sits up as he enters, watching him expectantly.   
“Did you get any of what I asked you, Armitage, or are you really that useless?”   
“Fucking hell,” Armitage said, “What, exactly, is stopping you from doing it yourself?”   
He sits down in an overstuffed oval chair opposite her.   
“I am in terrible pain,” Maratelle said.   
So am I.   
“Howards is bringing your painkillers and your staff is sorting your tea,” Hux said.   
Maratelle tucks a flyaway hair behind her ear. Her hair had been blonde most of his life, but now it was tinged with pink, almost as if to match the furniture.   
Was it the fashion now, amongst the ladies of Arkanis, or was it perhaps a horrible mistake?  
“What exactly brings you here, Armitage?”   
“You invited me,” he said.   
“Three years ago,” Maratelle said, which was true enough.   
Howards delivered her painkillers with a sycophantic bow, throwing a glance over his shoulder back at Hux.   
“Is everything alright, madam?” Howards said.   
“Yes,” she said, “I’ll let you know if anything changes.”   
She looks at Armitage pointedly, as if old Howards would be able move fast enough to stop Hux from killing the both of them, by blaster or blade, in seconds. 

Armitage excuses himself as Maratelle is served by the young girl.  
He goes to his bedroom. It’s small, insultingly so, for a house that had half a dozen guest rooms, but it had been his since he was a child.  
He takes out his coat and hangs it on the back of the door, which he, almost automatically, barricades closed with the back of the chair.   
He has to shift the bed next, as quietly as possible.  
It was heavier than he remembered, but perhaps he was just weaker, tireder. The last time he had moved the bed he’d been rather on the high of having killed his father.   
He prises the floorboard up, and liberates the shoebox he’d hidden underneath. He’d stolen it from Maratelle to hide his stuff, before they’d even left for the first time.   
His father was never too fond of the idea of Armitage having stuff. To him, sentiment was waste, and attachment was weakness.   
It was weak, coming back to it all now. Weak and stupid, but, especially as of late, they had become rather defining terms for Armitage.   
It was Dameron’s fault, making him think of his mother, making him think of things and childhood and all that other crap he’d worked so long and so hard to forget.   
The shoebox contained a mixture of specially sentimental and sentimentally stupid. A pressed flower, maybe from one of the gardeners? He doesn’t remember that one.   
A stone with a perfectly round hole in it, greenish, maybe from the sea. A knife, that Phasma had given him after its original owner, her mentor, had passed away (it was a kind of sick joke, she’d smirked when she’d handed it over, and said, after all, you were so determined to steal it). There was some other junk, too, yellowed paper that an engineer had drawn on for him, an oddly numerous amount of dried leaves he supposed he’d found special or interesting when he was a child. At the bottom was what he had come for.   
It was cheap material, some plastic-y cotton-blend type, pale, faded blue. It smells of her.   
She’d used it to tie her hair back, keep it out of her face.   
He doesn’t have letters from her, he doubts she could read or write, let alone be allowed to have given anything to him. She didn’t talk, either, not that he can think off.   
He had heard his father say once, that that is why he’d slept with her, the perfect woman: one who can’t say anything. It was the first time he’d really, actionably wanted to kill him, and all of his friends who had chuckled along with him.   
He doesn’t remember how he had gotten the scarf. Maybe she’d given it to him, more likely he’d stolen it.   
He’d hidden it for years, Brendol never would have let him keep it, and even the thought of taking it with him to basic training was laughable (he really would’ve been asking for the bullying, then).   
He hadn’t even thought of the junk for a long time, even if there was always the underlying assumption he’d come back for it.   
After Starkiller was fired, he wasn’t going to come back, even if Snoke did decide he hadn’t outlived his worth.   
He wraps the engineer’s schematic, the knife and the pebble in the scarf and slips it the breast pocket of his overcoat, and dumps the rest of the box and it’s content back beneath the floorboards. 

* 

  
When Hux had returned downstairs, intending to go to the kitchen to find something to eat, Maratelle called out to him.   
“Yes?” He said.   
There was a large, half-empty bottle of brandy on the table, a slightly oversized snifter in her hand.   
“Come here,” she said. Her voice was slurred, it was not her first glass, “Dinner is nearly ready.”   
“I’m not hungry,” he lied, because he did not want to eat with her.   
She raises in eyebrow, disbelieving and irritated.   
“Come along,” she said, standing, swaying, and they file into the dining room (as tackily decorated as the rest of the house - Armitage didn’t know tables could be so ostentatious).   
“You said you came to visit, but all you’ve done is skulk in your room.”  
“I didn’t come to visit you,” Hux said.   
“Oh? Then what?”  
“The rain,” he said.   
He sits opposite Maratelle, where a place has been laid out for him. It’s an odd experience, he expects it is for her as well. She had never let him eat with them when Brendol was alive (not that Brendol was exactly keen for his company, either).   
He refuses wine, and Maratelle looks offended at that. He tries to remember if there was some ridiculous rule about refusing things on Arkanis, or whether it is just Maratelle being Maratelle.   
Both seem likely.   
He barely recognises the soup that’s being served.  
“You’re not still fussy about meat, are you?”  
“No,” he lied. It’s why he preferred to stick with nutrition bars, not being able to stand the taste of death (he ought not to be squeamish about such things, by now, but he is).  
He spears (what he hopes is) a green vegetable with a little too much vigour.  
Maratelle is staring at him. Glaring, more accurately speaking. He’s not sure what brand of boorish behaviour he’s supposedly brandishing, but the looks she’s giving him is irritating enough that he drops his cutlery entirely and picks up a bread roll, tearing it apart in a greedy, untidy way he hates, using his hands instead of cutting it with a knife. Her glower intensifies, and she mutters something under her breath about bad breeding.   
He dips the bread in the soup.  
“Will you stop acting like a child?”  
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”   
They fall back into silence, Armitage eating around the meat, Maratelle drinking more than she eats.   
“I’m surprised you can afford to take the time off,” Maratelle said.  
“Excuse me?”  
“From what I’ve heard, you’re supposed to be in over your head,” Maratelle said.   
“And who did you hear that from?”   
He had a number of suspicions, but he wouldn’t act without confirmation.   
Maratelle smirked, and he realised that he’d fallen for one of her games.   
“Far too many people for you to anything about it,” Maratelle said, “Do you think He’d be proud?”   
She said ‘he’ with reverence, as though she was talking about someone who was worth remembering.   
“No.”   
Short, honest.  
“You’re not entirely delusional then,” Maratelle said, “He didn’t understand why the special leader took any kind of interest in you, you know.”   
“Supreme Leader,” Hux corrected, without thinking, “Brendol didn’t tell you as much as you think he did.”  
“As far as you know,” Maratelle said, “He didn’t tell you anything.”  
“I know that,” Armitage said, “But he didn’t leave me, did he?”   
Maratelle drained her wine glass and put it down with such heft that he was surprised the dainty, crystal stem didn’t snap.   
“He had your dumb slut of a mother killed, did you know that?”   
“Yes,” he said, through gritted teeth. He watches carefully for signs that Maratelle might be lying: but there’s no way to know that for sure.  
“I hated him,” Maratelle said, “Since the first time met him, I hated him, and still all I ever wanted was to please him.”  
Armitage can relate to that, at least.   
He almost forces himself to say something comforting.   
“You’re only proof what I couldn’t give him,”   
Armitage wonders if never occurred to her that even after all of Brendol’s infidelity, he only had one child. By rights there should be at least a dozen megalomaniacal red-headed bastards running about the galaxy. Maratelle had, apparently, only slept with one man, with exacting regularity, and had nothing to show for it.   
It seemed plausible that Brendol was the only with fertility problems, that Armitage had been an utter fluke - men like Brendol were not infertile, and wives like Maratelle were to get the blame. If she was a good as a wife as she claimed, the thought never would have crossed her mind.   
The Empire had taken genetics seriously. It’s why Armitage was such an aberration, the product of someone socially and genetically inferior. Maratelle would have been catalogued with as much care and consideration for her specifications as a Star Destroyer.   
He doesn’t say any of this to her.   
She’d hate him more for it.   
Instead, he excuses himself and goes to stand outside to smoke, smoothing the silver case between his fingers, thinks about Dameron touching it.   
The night air is cool, misty with fine rain. It’s refreshing, almost clean. Planets are never really clean.   
After he’s smoked two cigarettes and is suitably damp, he slips back inside. He wants to go straight upstairs to pretend to sleep, but Maratelle calls out to him again.   
She has fallen on the floor of the living room, too drunk to stand properly.   
“Please,” she said, “Help me up.”   
Just leaving her there is the kindest thought that crossed his mind. He even gets as far as taking half a step away from her, until a gnawing turns into a thought: Dameron wouldn’t like that.   
And it’s stupid, because Dameron’s not there, and wouldn’t ever know about this, but he bends down and slings Maratelle’s arm around his shoulder, heaving her up.   
He’s not particularly strong, but Maratelle is not particularly heavy, so it’s not much of a struggle to lug her up the stairs and to her bedroom.   
He has gotten in her in bed with her shoes off and a blanket thrown over her, and he is halfway out of the room to get her water from the kitchen (Maratelle does not drink tap-water) when he hears a thud, she half-falls and half-leaps from the bed and scrambles, sliding drunkenly towards her bathroom.   
He doesn’t think he would be judged by even Dameron’s moral standards for refusing to go help her in the bathroom, not from the sounds of vomiting (he doesn’t have the stomach for it), but he goes in, anyway.   
Choking on ones own vomit is such an undignified way to go, he won’t even wish it on Maratelle.   
“Maratelle?” He said, hands pressed against the doorframe, barely leaning in.   
“Armitage,” she said, “Help.”   
“There’s not much I can do,” He said, honestly, but not satisfyingly reassuringly, because Maratelle groans and vomits again.   
He sighs, steps inside the bathroom and crouches next to Maratelle, deftly avoiding the splashes of vomit that mar the white marble. He touches her hot, sweaty forehead and pulls her hair out her face. Half-heartedly, she swats at him.   
They never touched - only to hit him, but she doesn’t pull away, exactly, as he holds hair and she throws up again.   
“It’s good to be sick,” he said, “You’ll get it all out of your system and feel better.”   
He had no direct experience with being in such a state, but he’d peeled pissed-drunk soldiers off floors before (he had not held their hair or wiped their foreheads, however, in fact, he’d put them on the unpleasant jobs usually reserved for droids, bright and early the next morning).   
“Then we’ll get you to bed,” Armitage said, “With some water.”   
“Shut up,” she moans, grasping onto his sleeves, “Don’t leave.”   
“I won’t,” he said, wondering where her maid is.   
He has to hold back his own sickness and comforting her for another twenty minutes, before she feels ready to have him wipe her face with a cold cloth. He encourages her to swill her mouth with mouthwash, and then supports her back to bed.   
When he goes into the kitchen for her water, he considers banging on the door of Howards and ordering him to clean up the mess Maratelle had made, but he really doesn’t feel like it.   
Maratelle is sleeping by the time he returns, and he leaves the bottle of water besides some painkillers he suspects she’ll need in the morning.   
When he returns to his room, he sits on the bed and sips at a cup of water himself. He’s tired, but he doesn’t want to risk oversleeping, so he takes a stim and opens his Datapad, hoping to find something to preoccupy himself for a few hours. At least until it gets light: he wants to be gone before Maratelle wakes up, he wants to be far away from here, from everything, even from the days he’d spent with Dameron.   
He is not looking forward to journey back (in his head, he almost thinks the journey home, but that’s even more pathetic), as much as he wants to return. He’s always hated transport shuttles, hates flying (or rather being aware of flying) in a way he’d never admit.   
But he wants to be back on the Finalizer, doing what he does, and acting like himself, where he belongs, with Dameron pushed right out of his mind, where he belonged.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading !


	17. INTERLUDE 2: FINN

Finn will sometimes look in the mirror and repeat his name to himself. 

It doesn’t feel real, life on the base. It’s a strange feeling, like floating in the ocean. It feels nice, until you realise you don’t know how to swim.

But he settles, and treading water gets easier. 

It’s still uneasy. Defecting stormtroopers aren’t common, and there are people on base who don’t trust him, and he’s always got this underlying dread that he’s been fitted with a kill switch, and someone’s going to flick it all the way from the _Finalizer_ one day. 

He spends most of his time with Poe, or Rose and her sister Paige. Paige tells him to write things down, everything he can remember, even stuff he’s ashamed of or that hurts, and he takes that advice. 

Their little group expands slowly, he proves himself useful, he’s comfortable. 

He starts to feel like a whole person. 

Poe wants to ask him something. 

They’re in Poe’s room. Paige and Rose and a non-human mechanic named Plzlo had been over to play cards, and Finn had wiped the floor with the four of them. 

He knows Poe wants to ask him something because he’s been quiet. 

Quiet for Poe.

He’s been chatty enough with the others, laughing and joking, but he kept on stealing little glances at Finn, a nervous little buzz radiating off him that he can’t believe no-one else can feel. Finn does his best to ignore, lets the warmth of the evening’s energy wash over him.

Poe’s moving the table they’d been playing at back into the corner of the room when Finn can’t take it anymore.

“What is it?”

“What?”

“What are you thinking about?” 

Poe straightens up a little, then, more casually, leans against the table.

“Leia has given us clearance,” Poe says, “We’ll be able to leave base.”

“Me?”

“Yep,” Poe said, “You’re officially a member of the resistance.”

“What makes it so official, Commander Dameron?” Finn said, sitting on the table next to Poe, clutching the bottle of cheap, smuggled beer by it’s neck.

“I keep meaning to get cards made,” Poe said, “Never get round to it.”

“Right.” Finn said, “What is it that you really want to say?”

Poe takes the beer from Finn’s hand and takes a deep swig.

“We’re still looking for BB-8,” Poe said, “I want you to come with me.” 

“Of course,” Finn said, “ _And?_ ”

“I need you to go ahead,” Poe said, “While I meet a contact.”

“Hux?” Finn says, doesn’t know where the guess comes from. 

From what Poe had told him, he’d scouted a few possible targets for defecting. 

Poe nods. 

“It’ll be a couple of cycles,” Poe said, “I’m gonna try and get him to come with me.” 

“He’s a true believer, Poe,” Finn said, “Just because you had a weird relationship with him, doesn’t mean he’s not. ”

“You don’t know him,” Poe said.

“I know what he’s responsible for.” Finn said, “That’s enough for me.”

“I think he’s capable of change,” Poe said, “And _that’s_ enough for me.”

Finn pauses, considers the number of people who wouldn’t have given him a chance. 

“Fine,” Finn says, “But if General Organa asks I’m not going to lie about it.” 

Poe grins, it’s more genuine than it’s been all night, so Finn can’t help but grin back.

*

It’s definitely in the top ten dumbest decisions he’s made. After going his separate ways from Poe and practically crash-landing (he really should’ve gotten more training before agreeing to this) he’s stomping his way through a desert with a backpack, a data-pad, and a vague idea of the droid he’s looking for. 

He think it’s useless, that the droid was lost forever. Until he sees it. 

He thinks it’s a hallucination at first, the very round droid with a fairly tall, slender but strong looking girl, just a few feet in front of him. 

From a distance, she stares at him, eyes narrowed, like she can see the stormtrooper in him. 

“I’ve been looking for that droid!” He blurts. 

“This droid?” The girl said.

“Yes, that droid,” Finn said. The droid rolls backwards and beeps, skirting around the girl’s ankles.

“BB-8,” Finn says, with a smile, “Poe Dameron sent me. He’s been looking for you, too.”

The droid beeps happily and rolls towards Finn. 

The girl rolls her eyes. 

“I’m Finn,” he says, half to BB-8, half to the girl.

“Rey,” she says, narrowing her eyes at him, “What’s so important about the droid?” 

BB-8 beeps, importantly.

“What do you mean?” Finn says, “He’s just a droid.”

BB-8 beeps again, seemingly annoyed. 

“No,” Rey says, “Lot of people are after him.” 

There’s something about Rey that Finn feels he should instinctively trust.

“He’s got something the First Order want,” Finn says, “We’re trying to keep them from getting it.” 

“Okay,” Rey said, “What do you need?” 

“To get outta here,” Finn said. 

“I can help with that,” Rey says, “It’s kind of a rust-bucket, but I know a ship.”

“Why? Why are you helping?” 

Rey smiles. 

“Why not?”

*

Finn had heard of Han Solo, Chewbacca, and maybe, vaguely, the Millennium Falcon. None of it very flattering, at first. 

Then at the Resistance base, he’d heard more about them, all heroic acts and plenty violent war stories, but often not much more flattering the First Order propaganda. 

Rey had quickly proved to be the most useful person he could’ve possibly ran into. 

And, after Han Solo and Chewbacca turned up, Finn was starting to think he luck was going to run out at any second. 

They travelled to Takodana, setting themselves up in a tavern owned by one of Solo’s friends. 

They’d been sat in the cantina for much of the day, Solo does most of the talking. Enough for all of them. Finn gets the feeling that Solo cares about other people’s comfort a hell of a lot more than he lets on. 

“Poe’s coming,” Finn says, pushing the Datapad back in his jacket. BB-8 chirps. 

“Dameron?” Han says. 

Finn nods. 

“Where was he?”

Finn and Rey exchange a look that Solo seems not to catch. 

“Personal mission,” Finn says, and very casually takes a drink.

“Is Leia gonna be pissed if she finds out?” Solo said. 

“Maybe,” Finn said, “You’re not going to say anything to her, are you?”

“I don’t know,” Solo said, “Might be nice to have her pissed with someone who’s not me.”

Chewbacca roars with something that might be laughter.

Poe falls in enviably easily with the crowd, arriving with a sort of swagger and a laugh, not even seeming to notice he’s never met Rey before. But there’s that nervous buzzing energy again.

“So, where’ve you been, kid?” Solo says, pushing a drink towards Poe. 

“Just meeting a contact,” Poe said, taking a measured sip.

“It’s pretty high-level intel you got,” Solo said, still casual.

“General Organa and I already had this conversation,” Poe said, “But I made some pretty high-level friends when I was undercover.”

Finn nearly chokes on his drink.

“Do you know what the plan is?” Solo said, dropping his voice, maybe unnecessarily - no-one seemed to care about that.

“Leia has contacted senators in the Hosnian system,” Poe said, “We don’t want a mass panic. She’s offered to help with civilian evacuations…”

Poe licks his lip. 

“But?”

“They haven’t been very co-operative.” Poe said, “They seem to think it’s false intel.”

“Is it?”

“No,” Poe said, “I think…I trust the intel.”

Later, Poe and Finn are in a small, uncomfortable back-room. Rey had stayed to talk to Maz, and Chewie and Solo made their way back to the Falcon. 

“You didn’t bring him in?” Finn said. 

“I couldn’t,” Poe said, “He wouldn’t.”

“I thought that was the plan,” Finn said, “You know, I look for your droid, you bring in _him_.” 

“There was nothing I could’ve done,” Poe said, “I couldn’t bring him in on my own and you _crashed_.”

“I performed an emergency landing,” Finn said, “If he was willing to give you that information, then why wasn’t he willing to come with you? How long does he think he can keep these secrets from _mind-readers?_ ”

Poe just shrugs. 

“Finn,” Poe says, softly, “I don’t know. I don’t know what he wants. All I know is that I won’t let this get in the way of what I have to do.” 

*

There’s been a weird, heavy atmosphere since Starkiller fired. It goes without saying.

Finn doesn’t go looking for information about what happened to the Hosnian system. Doesn’t want to, really, even if he doesn’t want to bury his head in the sand, there’s only so much detail an individual can know about an atrocity without imploding.

He knows enough about how and why it happened, maybe too much, but when he sees Hux’s little speech, he slides it wordlessly over to Poe, who gazes down at.

It’s not the nice thing to do, but Finn thinks he’ll see it anyway. 

After a few seconds, Poe throws down the Datapad and stalks off, eyes wide as a whipped porg. BB-8 beeps sadly and rolls off after him. 

Rey raises an eyebrow at Finn.

_What do you expect?_ Finn wants to say. It’s a nasty thought, the sort he finds himself having occasionally. Being nice was rarely an option in Stormtrooper training. 

It’s not Poe he’s mad at. Well, a little. Poe obviously believes the best in people, and that worked well for Finn. Worked out well for Rey, too. 

But Hux was different. He’d already had two chances to leave. Maybe a dozen or so more. 

A few minutes of silent drinking pass before Finn gets up from the table, walks outside to look around for Poe. 

He’s just a little way away, sat on a tree stump with BB-8, smoking.

“I’m sorry,” Finn says, because it seems like the right thing to say. 

The word is foreign in his mouth, even now.

Poe shakes his head. 

“Not your fault,” Poe says, casually. 

“Paige was there,” Finn says, “Helping to evacuate people.” 

“I know,” Poe says. 

“Are you still in contact with him?” 

Poe shrugs and shakes his head. 

“Not for a couple of cycles,” Poe said, rubbing his forehead, “He warned us. We warned the senators - we did our part.”

“And then he killed billions,” Finn said, “Do you have an excuse for that?” 

“No,” said Poe, “But it would have been more if he hadn’t - if the Republic had _listened_ then it wouldn’t have been billions. But they decided to save themselves.”

Finn doesn’t bother to hold back a laugh.

“That’s what Hux _wanted_ ,” he says, “He wants you to see the Republic as evil.” 

“Then he succeeded, didn’t he?” Poe said, “Finn - I know. The First Order is evil and I’ll never not believe that, but the Republic _allowed_ them to exist. The republic isn’t a good option just because the First Order is a worse one. It’s the Resistance or total destruction.” 

“But you love him.” Finn says, not hiding his disgust.

“No-one said love is logical,” Poe says, more casually than he obviously means it.

“Do you think he’s capable of loving you back?” Finn says. 

“He let us go,” Poe said.

“From where I was standing, he didn’t have much choice,” Finn said, he kicks up sand from the floor.

“He’ll give us more information,” Poe says, “That’s the plan.”

Finn wonders if Poe means it, or at the very least, think he means it. He doesn’t want to continue the argument.

“I’m going to bed,” Finn said, “Unless you’re waiting for a goodnight call from you boyfriend, you should too.”

Finn doesn’t go right to bed, he’s on his way when Maz stops him, and invites him into her rooms to talk. 

*

He’s woken up in the middle of the night from a weak half-sleep, Poe’s hand of his shoulder.

“First Order’s coming for BB,” Poe said, “Resistance is on their way, too.”

There’s a petty comment brewing in Finn’s mind that he decides not to make, jumping to action and dressing instead.

“Where’s Rey?” 

“I don’t know,” Poe said, “I was sleeping until - ”

“Hux?” 

“It’s not important,” Poe said, “We’ve got to get BB-8 somewhere safe.”

“I’ve got to find Rey,” Finn says, “She’s my friend.”

Poe nods, smiles. 

“Okay,” he says, “Stay safe.” 

“Don’t worry,” Finn said, “I won’t hurt your boyfriend unless I _really_ have to.” 

He hugs Poe tightly, really hopes it’s not the last time, for either of them.

“I know that,” Poe says, “I’ll see you soon. I’ve gotta beat you at cards.” 

“That’ll never happen,” said Finn, hand on the Skywalker lightsaber he’s not told Poe about, “But you can dream.” 


	18. Eye in the Sky

Phasma is waiting for him in the office he set up for himself on Starkiller base, sitting behind his desk like it was hers. She wasn’t in her armour, but clothes usually reserved for training, and she had her bare feet on his desk. 

“I told Mitaka to be here,” 

“I sent him away.”

“Don’t send my people away,” He said, halting near her, “Get out of my seat.”

She ignores him. 

“You still haven’t slept. You said you’d be less,” Phasma says, and gestures at him, “ _This_ after Starkiller was fired.”

“I have more pressing things to worry about than sleep,” he said, “Like finding out who informed those Hosnian politicians about the target.”

Phasma tilts her head to one side, and he remains standing over her. 

“Not many people knew about that,” Phasma said, “Should be pretty easy to find out.”

“Theoretically,” he said, backing away from her and moving to look out of the window, “But anyone with a talent for codebreaking could have found out.”

“Didn’t you do a lot of the work on the security systems?” She asked, though she knew the answer. 

“Exactly,” Hux said, “So it’s my fuck-up, isn’t it? My mess to clean up.”

“You’d do a better job if you slept,” she said, and she takes her feet from his desk, and straightens up, no longer making the show of casual concern, “Didn’t you promise me that it would be us against the rest of them, for the Order, when it came down to it?”

“I did,” Hux said, “And it is.” 

“Then tell me why you went to Arkanis,” she said, “When you said you’d never go back.”

“I had to get something,”

“Why, when you should’ve been on Starkiller base?” 

“Don’t tell me where I should have been, Captain.”

“I’ll tell you whatever I like _Armitage_.” 

He turns to glare at her. 

“Would you believe me if I told you I didn’t go to Arkanis, I went to some backwater swamp of a planet to visit a secret lover?” 

Phasma laughed. 

“As long as you invite me to the wedding,” said Phasma. 

“I’d need a best woman, wouldn’t I?” Hux said. 

She’s smiling, but there is still deep suspicion in her eyes. 

“Are you planning on killing Maratelle?” 

Hux shrugged. 

“I’m always planning on killing someone, aren’t I?” 

Hux leans over her, taking off his glove and using his fingerprint to open the draw. She watches him closely and takes out the old flick knife and tosses it careless on the desk in front of her before closing the draw again. 

He’d kept it behind when he’d sent his other findings on to be sent to Dameron. 

“I told you, I went to pick up some things that held sentimental value,” Hux said. 

“I thought you didn’t believe in sentiment,” Phasma said, touching the knife. 

“I don’t,” Hux said, “Usually. You should keep that. Sentinel was your friend.”

Phasma narrows her eyes, suspicious of him again. 

“Are you dying?” 

“No faster than normal,” Hux said, “Take it or don’t. I only ever wanted it for the steal in the first place.” 

“You pick up any other sentimental items?” 

Phasma leans down to put on her boots, sliding the knife in casually.

“Nothing of any worth,” Hux said. 

“The Resistance knew that Kylo Ren was going to Takodana, too,” Phasma said, “Are you looking into that?” 

“Of course,” Hux said, “That one is not necessarily a leak. As we well know that droid had been a priority for Ren and the Resistance. It very well could have been coincidence.” 

“First sentiment, now coincidence,” Phasma said, standing, “There _is_ something up with you.”

“You’ve never trusted me, have you?” 

Phasma smiles. 

“Not as far as I could throw you,” Phasma said, “But that would be pretty far, considering there’s not much to you.”

Hux rolls his eyes. 

“We’re supposed to come first, as you said, correct?”

Phasma glances about the room, as if looking for a camera or spy, some kind of set up.

“You’re having second thoughts,” Phasma said. 

“It’s too late for second thoughts, Phasma,” Hux said, “The Supreme Leader and Ren are obsessive force-users who care only about their own petty, mystical undertakings. They - the Sith, whatever they’re calling themselves - do not care for Order. They don’t want an end to the chaos, they _revel_ in it.”

“That’s a nice speech, Armitage,” Phasma said, “Been rehearsing? Who’s it for?” 

“It’s not a speech,” Hux said, “You don’t like the Jedi crap any more than I do.”

“The Old Imperials do,” Phasma said, “It reminds them of Vader. They want the past.”

“I want the future,” Hux said, “And I don’t care about the Imperials, not anymore. We could kill them all, at no loss to the galaxy.” 

Phasma blinks at him slowly. 

“It’s treasonous,” 

“We’ve committed _that_ plenty before,” Hux said, “It’s your choice.”

“Or what? Are you going to kill me?”

Hux shook his head. 

“Never you,” he said, “What do you want? You could have left after my father died.”

“And done what?”

“Whatever you wanted,” Hux said, “No-one knows your face.”

“I believe in the First Order,” Phasma said, “I’d have wasted my life on a nothing planet in a nothing system otherwise.”

“And the Supreme Leader?”

“I respect their power,” Phasma said. 

The very answer he didn’t want - it feels almost like a betrayal, though he knows she doesn’t necessarily mean it that way. 

They’d been set up as enemies since he was a child. Brendol had made sure of that from the very beginning. It had taken them years to build real bridges and get over their differences. Even throughout the brief, odd and wholly misplaced crush he’d nursed on her when he was young he’d hated her. He’d gotten over hating her and feeling anything other than ally-ship and the strange after-effects of sibling rivalry towards her. 

“If Ren and the Supreme Leader were to die tomorrow,” Phasma said, “I wouldn’t exactly give a mournful speech about how I much I’d miss them.” 

Hux smiled tightly.

*  


He’s gotten dozen of messages congratulating him on Starkiller. 

He hasn’t paid attention to most of them. Several times he has opened up messages only to close them again. Dameron did not contact him, not even after he’d sent him a message about Takodana, not until a few days later, when he assumes Dameron had gotten himself out of any immediate danger, and has returned to the Resistance base, where Hux had sent the items he’d taken from Arkanis for Dameron’s safe-keeping. 

It was a risky decision, but he’d long since learned against keeping sentimental items on his person. 

DOES THIS MEAN YOU’RE COMING?

NOT EXACTLY. 

Dameron does not respond immediately. 

There’s pathetic, desperate loneliness that grows in his stomach in response. This is not a sustainable way to live. 

Not the lying to mind-readers, not the passing of information to the Resistance, and not talking to Dameron. 

Dameron is not someone worth dying over, he repeats internally to himself. 

NOT _EXACTLY_?

I NEED SOME TIME

He replies, as soon as Dameron does, even though he’s trying to sleep ( _pathetic)_.

*

He does not get the time he needs. 

While Ren is storming about, chasing a scavenger girl, a new temporary obsession that immediately replaced the droid, the Resistance rapidly approach, and he respects Dameron’s lack of a warning on that. 

Even when it does end in the destruction of _his_ Starkiller, and him searching for Ren of all people, the man he wants nothing more to leave to burn or freeze or bleed out, which ever is the most painful. 

They are speeding away from an imploding planet, when Ren, as surrounded by med-droids as he was, grabs at the collar of his coat. 

Not with the force, with his hands - and pulls him closer.

“I know Starkiller was you.”

“What?” 

“You gave information to the Resistance.”

“No - ”

“When he finds out, he’ll finally put you down.”

He pulls away from Ren’s dirty, bloody hands, and searches for the bluff in his eyes. 

“You’re lying,” Hux said, “Because I have nothing to do with the Resistance.” 

Ren laughs, gurgles and splutters on his blood unattractively. 

“I told you once, that you’re _easy_.” Ren said. 

It wasn’t true: Ren had told him he was _loud._ Complained bitterly about, as if Hux wouldn’t have already changed that if he could.

“Poe Dameron saw that to,” Ren said, and Hux pushes his gloved fingers into the wound on Ren’s face before even Ren can do anything about it (the fight with the girl must’ve _really_ weakened him. Good). 

“Shut up, Ren,” he said, retracting his hands and backing up as Ren struggles to a sit and grabs his sleeve. 

“I’m giving you a head start,” Ren said, “Leave now.” 

A chill flushes through Hux’s body. 

“What?”

“Disappear,” Ren said, “Take an escape pod and disappear or stay with the First Order and get executed. Not only did your little project fail, but you sabotaged it. You’re no use to Snoke now. Even your sycophantic officers will only see you as a traitor.”

“Why?” Hux says, because as much as he loathed to admit it: Ren was right. If Snoke really knew that he’d been in contact with the Resistance, he had little chance, if any, at survival. 

Hux had always been good at survival.

“Why not?” Ren said, pushing away at a med-droid that was attempting to fix him. 

*

Hux arrives at the humid, concrete-jungle city with the same stone cold feeling he’s had since he’d picked Ren up. 

It was a power-grab from Ren, it had to be. 

Was testing the theory worth dying?

It’s a First Order allied planet, so he’s in no trouble for his uniform, though he should probably remove that rank insignia (he won’t though, because he’s _earned_ it).

The planet is useful for the wealth of its highest classes. 

Disgustingly, ostentatiously wealthy people who worry that any Resistance or even Republic gains will result in them losing their precious-metal mines and having to pay their servants more than a slave wage. 

It’s easy enough to steal from them, the very richest dress elaborately, and keep their credits in velvet bags on jewelled belts, usually followed by an entourage of alien employees. Certain species are more fashionable than others. 

Hux bumps into them, the rich man swears at him, then apologises when he sees Hux’s uniform, and switches to cursing at the alien instead.

He does not see Hux grab the credit purse, though the alien does, and does not say anything.

Hux knows you can’t buy loyalty, especially not at such a low rate. 

He finds the seedy sort of hotel that nobody would look for him in. The manager overcharges him. Maybe hates the Order, maybe makes too much money from those on leave to refuse service. Hux doesn’t think he’s recognised, if he is, the manager doesn’t show it. 

He locks himself in his room. It’s about as clean as he expected it would be. He could afford better, with the stolen credits, afford the sort of prissy room anyone would expect him to stay in. The carpet is stained with something dark, but, mercifully, the bed sheets look crisp and white and freshly laundered. 

It’s still against his better judgement that he takes off his boots and folds the uppermost layers of the uniform and places them on the metal desk in the corner before slipping into the bed and falling quickly asleep.

He sleeps for too long, wakes feeling so desperately dehydrated that he has to choke down a lukewarm orange drink from the minibar. 

It doesn’t do much to help his dry mouth, but he will not drink the water from this hotel (he’s hesitant to use it to even wash his face). 

He spends time taking inventory. Credits are unlikely to be a problem, which takes care of food and shelter, at the very least temporarily (he is not above stealing more, especially as a means to survive). Medication might be a problem. He doesn’t have much left, never made the habit of carrying it around with him. Keeping that a secret didn’t matter any more. Doctors are easily bought in cities like this.

He doesn’t have many stims. It wouldn’t be a problem except to hold off withdrawal symptoms. _That_ was going to be a pain. 

He has his Datapad. He could contact Dameron, turn himself in, officially _defect._

Even thinking about it leaves a sour feeling at the very core of his body. What sort of life would that be? Prison. Maybe a lesser sentence for the information he had passed on. Maybe they’d execute him anyway. Everybody likes a bit of bloodsport, now and again. 

He could try and suggest he and Dameron run away. No more Resistance, no more First Order. 

But Dameron _was_ loyal, he’d never abandon the Resistance.

Besides, they would probably kill each other out of sheer boredom within a week. 


	19. Bad Beat

Hux goes dark.   
Well, Poe is used to not hearing from him. Sometimes he would message with information, sometimes he’ll give a short, clipped response to something Poe’s said. Poe can just hear his voice, whenever Hux thinks he’s said something stupid and can’t seem to stop himself from responding.   
After destroying Starkiller base, Poe goes back to his room and sleeps for fourteen hours straight. Then he eats breakfast with Finn and Rey. He’s got a thousand questions to ask them both but they’re joined by a small posse of his pilots. Normally, Poe would love this. The more the merrier, especially when eating is involved.   
But Finn and Rey have a secret, and they think they’re being subtle.   
Poe’s desperate to just yell, spill it.   
Poe doesn’t know exactly what went on with Kylo Ren, and they’re both keeping pretty quiet about it.   
It’s not something that would usually get under his skin like this.   
Poe messages Hux and gets no response. He thinks - knows - it’s unlikely the first thing Hux is going to do is check in with the person who destroyed his life’s work but he’s still hopeful.   
It’s possible that Hux is even a little pissed off with him, and it would be fair if it wasn’t a gigantic super-weapon with the capacity to wipe out billions that he had destroyed.   
It’s after a couple of days that Poe actually starts to get worried.   
The guys in data and communications had intercepted lists of First Order transfers, lists of deaths.   
The death list is shorted than expected, until Poe realises that they’re not counting Stormtroopers.   
Hux doesn’t appear on any of them. He won’t let himself panic.   
Hux is smart. He’ll be lying low, regrouping, thinking of and plotting something terrible that Poe’s going to have to stop him from doing.   
Then, after five days of radio silence, Poe gets a call.   
He’s really not expecting it. Hux doesn’t initiate conversation unless he’s passing urgent information, and he’s never called. Poe didn’t even realise the system they’re using could support a call.   
He’s in the hangar. He’s not desperate to speak to Hux or anything, but he rushes out as quickly as he can without looking like he’s having some big emergency that will arouse suspicion.   
If anyone asks, he’ll say it is his Dad (actually, he really needs to call his Dad).   
“Hux,” he says, answers as soon as his door is closed and locked.  
He waits for some cutting comment, or a snarky, you took your time, but it doesn’t happen.   
Hux just blinks at him, like he’s shocked he answered.   
“Dameron,” Hux says, like it’s the first time they’re meeting, “How are you?”  
Hux’s is tone is off, somehow. It could be a bad connection, but he sounds sick.  
“I’m great. You?” Poe says.   
“I’ve been better,” Hux said, “I presume you were responsible for…”  
“Yeah, I played my part,” Poe said, “Where are you?”  
He looks more undone than usual. A little blue. His hair isn’t pushed back as severely.  
“Why should I tell you that?”   
“Fair,” Poe said, “I thought you were dead.”  
“Sorry to disappoint,” Hux said.   
“I was worried, Hux. You could’ve replied.”  
Hux shrugged.   
“I’ve been busy,” Hux said, “My home exploded.”  
Poe snorted.   
“Your home?” Poe said, “You and a million other people. Not to mention the ones who lost their lives…”  
“Please don’t lecture me,” Hux said, “I have a headache.”  
Poe snorted.  
“Fuck,” Poe said, “I thought you might be at least a little remorseful. Do you care at all?”  
“I didn’t call to…”  
“Do you?”   
Poe sits heavily on his couch. He’s not sure where the sudden anger has sprung from.   
Worry. Fear.   
Maybe he’s been repressing it for weeks.   
“Care about what?”   
“You’re unreal,” Poe said, “About their lives.”  
“I did what I could do prevent utter catastrophe - ”  
“Except build the weapon in the first place,” Poe said, “And choose where to point it, and then you fired it.”  
“You think if I refused to fire it then nobody else would? That anything would change at all? I gave you the opportunity to help them.”  
“There wasn’t enough time,” Poe said, “And there were those within the Republic who didn’t trust the information. And I don’t blame them for not believing that multiple planets would be blown out of existence.”  
“They trusted it enough to flee their homes with their families, didn’t they?”   
Hux’s expression is spiteful, smug.   
“Finn was right,” Poe said, “You really were just trying to convince me that the Republic is bad, weren’t you?”   
Hux’s frown deepened.   
“I shouldn’t think I needed to convince you of that,” Hux said, “I thought you knew. But they lived up to my expectations of them, yes, and I’m glad of that.”   
Poe pinches the bridge of his nose.   
“Do you regret any of it?”  
“I regret this conversation,” Hux said, and then, softer, “I regret that I’ve made you angry with me.”   
Any relief that he’d gotten from Hux being alive sank again, and he felt like he was choking on sand.   
“It’s not enough,” Poe said, “I don’t think we should do this anymore.”  
It slips out before he has a chance to think it through, to really consider what he’s saying.   
It seems like the right thing to do, morally, and he hates himself for regretting it.   
“Of course,” Hux said, voice clipped again, “You’ve gotten everything you wanted from me, I suppose.”   
“No,” Poe said, “It’s not like that. It’s…”  
“Do you care? About them all? Every single one of them? Doesn’t that destroy you? Do you think about the times I slept beside you and you could have killed me, before Starkiller was even completed? They might have finished it without me eventually but it was my project, after all. Do you regret not torturing me into giving up more information?” Hux said, “Do you regret ever fucking me, or telling me you loved me? Or was that part of the game?”  
“It wasn’t a game. None of this has ever been a game. It’s been peoples lives,” Poe said, “And I wasn’t supposed to love you, but I do.”   
“Then why isn’t it enough that I…care for you? I don’t care about the Republic or the Resistance or anyone in it. I don’t care about anything. I’ll give up whatever you ask me to. Haven’t I already?”   
He doesn’t want to see Hux cry. Hates Hux a little for crying at all, hates himself for wanting to take everything he’s said back.   
“I can’t be that. It’s not fair to make me that,” Poe said, “I can’t be the only person you care about. You’ll suffocate me.”   
There’s more he has to say, but Hux hangs up before he gets the chance.   
There is a part of him that wants to call Hux back, to call him a coward, to tell him how he feels when he’s low, when he thinks about the people that died because of him.   
When he thinks about Paige and feels like he is betraying her by loving the person responsible for her death, the deaths of dozens of other pilots, and an uncountable number of others.   
He wants to call Hux back and tell him he’s sorry. Not about all of it, but about the suffocating thing. He doesn’t.   
He shuts off his Datapad and stands again, pacing around his room. He picks up a jacket that he’d dumped on the couch and dumps it on the bed instead.   
He touches the package that Hux had sent, the one with the letter that asked him to keep it for him but not open it.   
There’s a fleeting thought of finding the nearest fire and throwing it in, but he can’t do that.   
If Hux had sent it, it might hold some worth to him, and Poe just couldn’t do that.   
It was equally likely, knowing Hux, that the package contained some high-tech explosives that the advanced scanners the Resistance had couldn’t even detect, and would be immediately set off upon burning.   
He puts the package in the back of his closet, and rips up the letter for catharsis. 

***

In Poe’s own opinion, he’s always had a pretty good work life balance.   
He loves his job, his coworkers, but he knows the value of a break. A good pilot needs a good nights sleep. A happy pilot needs a few hours here and there out of the seat.   
Flying makes Poe feel most alive, but there’s other stuff, too. Card games with his friends, fixing up craft in the hangar, workouts in the gym, food.   
The day after his fight with Hux, Finn comes into his room and tells him that he and Rey are going away for a bit.   
“It’s the Force, isn’t it?” Poe said, “Skywalker?”  
Tries not to sound offended that Finn hadn’t told him sooner. It’s his life. His business.   
Finn laughs.   
“Yeah,” Finn said, “But I’m got about to be a Jedi or anything. I didn’t escape one weirdo group with more rules than anyone could ever remember to join another one. I just gotta know how far this goes. It could tell me something about before, right?”   
Poe nods.   
“I understand,” Poe says, claps his hand on Finn’s shoulder, “You’re just running away from that card game you owe me, right?”  
“In your dreams, flyboy,” Finn says, “I’m coming back.”   
“I know you are,” Poe said, “Like you could stand to be away from me for too long.”  
“Yeah, it’s gonna kill me,” Finn said, and he rolls his eyes, but he pulls Poe into a tight hug, too, “I mean it. It’s not going to be forever.”   
Poe pushes himself into the embrace more, tightening his arms around Finn. He’s probably a better hugger than Hux.   
Don’t think about him, asshole.   
“Tell Rey she better look after you,” Poe said, as they pull apart.   
“Tell Rose she better look after you,” Finn said. 

After Finn and Rey leave, his work-life balance gets knocked off its axis. He throws himself into it. Volunteers for a couple of trips better suited to a delivery boy (not that he’s really above it). He even starts looking at files, tries to get a little more organised.   
He spends his free time in the hangar. Not necessarily unusual for him, but it’s more and more every night.   
He even skips a couple of meals when he’s really busy, which isn’t something he’s ever willingly done in living memory.   
It doesn’t matter how much he works, how many distractions he finds for himself. Eventually, he’ll be lying in bed or napping in the cockpit, and worries and fears explode in his mind, like a dozen Starkillers.   
He should tell Leia. Tell her everything, including the stuff she probably already knows, not only that he’s kind-of a traitor but he’s missed several opportunities to bring in General Hux, of all people.   
He goes to a counselling session, skirts around the truth. She tells him he should take a break, a mission like the ones he’s been on lately are enough to mess anyone up.   
She says, a couple of weeks of rest and relaxation and he’ll be fine.   
Poe would normally be up for that, especially if meant going to Yavin 4, or maybe a nice beach somewhere, but there’s the chance that doing that will let his thoughts catch up with again.   
He started sending a couple of messages to Hux a day.   
He asks for a call at first, then a message, and then, when he starts to get desperate, literally any form of communication, even if it’s just a nonsense string of words.   
He shouldn’t be surprised that Hux doesn’t respond, but he is.   
He hasn’t felt this crappy and lost since his mom passed, and it’s in thinking that that he decides he really does need a break, needs to see his Dad.   
Kes Dameron had never let him mope. He wasn’t dismissive of feelings or anything, but he’d had gotten him through these gloomy thoughts once and he’d do it again.   
Besides, Poe could really do with a home-cooked meal.   
As it turns out, he doesn’t even have to explain to Leia why he needs a vacation in the middle of a war, because she tells him there’s a job, and Yavin 4 would act as a good stop-over spot.   
“Hey, BB, want to go visit my Dad?” Poe said, after his working vacation has been cleared.   
BB-8 beeps the affirmative.   
“Wouldn’t he be your grandpa?”   
He’s sure, then, that BB calls him weird as he rolls off excitedly. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading, and for any comments/kudos, I really appreciate it.   
> You may have noticed that I cut down the number of chapters, but that is just because the last couple seemed to go better with the sequel, so it's ultimately all the same.   
> Merry Christmas to anyone who celebrates it, and hope everyone is staying safe! Happy totally normal week to anyone who doesn't celebrate it, and also stay safe.


	20. House Advantage

  
It strikes Poe, two weeks and three standard days after their little argument, that this is the longest Poe has gone without some kind of contact with Hux is nearly a year.   
He lands on Yavin 4, a short hike away from his father’s house, which is shrouded by too many trains to get a closer landing. Before he leaves for his Dad’s house, he writes, and then deletes a message for Hux.  
I’m sorry, baby, but I’m not going to apologise for being mad that you played a large part in the deaths of billions. 

When he was a kid, he never would have guessed how much he would miss Yavin. He’d gone through a long phase, especially after his mom had died, of hating everything about the planet. The vicious wild animals, the poisonous plants, the trees. He’d always imagined himself as a pilot, yeah, but with a penthouse suite in a busy city, where he could go out every night and drink and dance, have dinner parties in his cool apartment.   
He could’ve done that, really, if his stupid morals hadn’t gotten in the way and he hadn’t ended up joining the Resistance.   
Now he loves Yavin 4. He’d maybe not exactly choose to live there.   
BB-8 doesn’t like it, rolling around occasionally giving mildly distressed beeps when he gets himself tangled in vines. 

“Hey Beebee,” Kes said, as BB-8 rolls ahead of Poe at full tilt.   
“Did you just say hi to my droid before me?”   
“Eh, he’s cuter than you,” Kes said, and welcomes Poe with a hug.  
“That’s not what you used to say,” Poe said.   
He was glad to hug his Dad after so long, his familiar deep citrus smell was so comforting, that everything fell away and he was really glad to be home.   
“You’re old enough to know the truth,” Kes said, “How are you?”  
Kes pulls away, holding Poe’s shoulders at arms length, looking him up and down as if searching for a deeper reason of Poe’s visit.   
“Good,” Poe says, scratching the back of neck.   
“Yeah, sure,” Kes said, “You look terrible.”  
“Hear that, BB? Grandpa thinks I look terrible.”   
BB, wisely, does not respond, instead contents himself with rolling up to Kes’s chickens and rolling away again when they approach him.   
“I’m too young to be anyone’s Grandpa,” Kes said.   
“You’re sixty-five,”   
“Sixty-three!”   
“That’s basically seventy, old man,” Poe says, slapping his Dad on the back, “What’s for lunch?” 

***

“I’ve done some really stupid shit over the past couple of months,” says Poe, picking at the meat straight from the bone.  
“Stop it,” Kes said, “It’s for later. When aren’t you doing stupid shit?”  
Poe cocks his head.   
“You’re supposed to say, son, I’m sure you made the right decision with the resources you had.”  
“That doesn’t really sound like something I’d say, does it? You must be thinking of your other dad.”  
“Oh right. Where is that guy?”  
Kes smiled and pats Poe’s shoulder.  
“What is it, son?”  
“It’s stupid,” Poe said, “I feel like I’m fifteen again.”   
“Love stuff?”  
“Yeah, actually,” Poe said, “Which is why it’s so stupid. There’s a whole war going on and I’m pining for someone I shouldn’t even like.”  
Kes doesn’t say anything, and quietly pours out two glasses of wine before placing them at the table.   
Poe sits down. The last time they had this conversation it was with soda, not wine.   
“Are they really that bad?” Kes said, when Poe had failed to open up after a couple of awkward sips of wine.   
“I met someone,” Poe said, “When I was undercover.”  
“Ah,” Kes said, taking a gulp of wine.   
“I haven’t told anyone,” Poe said, “Except Finn. And he kind of put two-and-two together.”  
“So they’re First Order,” Kes said, careful.   
There was nothing about his expression or his voice that belied disgust or disappointment.   
“He is, yeah,” Poe said, “The First Order-iest.”   
“Right,” Kes said, still gentle, “He doesn’t want to leave?”  
“No,” Poe said, “I tried that.”  
Kes sighed, plays with the stem of the wine glass.   
“It’s General Hux,” Poe said.   
Kes chokes.   
“The same General Hux that…”  
“Yeah, Dad,” Poe said, “I told you it was bad. But he’s not. All bad, that is.”  
“I thought you were joking,” Kes said, “Are you?”  
“No,” Poe said, “Trust me, I wish I was.”  
“The First Order thinks he is dead,” Kes said.  
“When?” Poe said.   
Kes shrugs.  
“Few weeks ago. Not long after the Starkiller base was destroyed,” Kes said, “Jorje works in decryption. He never turned up on his new ship.”   
“I spoke to him two weeks ago,” Poe said, “He didn’t say anything about…being dead.”  
Poe cuts himself off, and thinks back to the holo call. Hux hadn’t said anything about where he was, hadn’t mentioned new information. Was he lying low?   
Had he been planning of defecting?   
Poe makes a mental note to try harder to get back into contact with him.   
“I won’t tell anyone,” Kes said, mistaking his look, “General Hux?”  
“I thought we’d gotten over that part,”   
“Hells, no.” Kes said, “Why?”  
“He can be funny,” Poe said, “Thoughtful, sometimes. He had been giving us information. But that’s our secret, too. No-one knows where I was getting it from.”  
Kes smiled tightly.   
“Please stop looking at me like that, Dad,”   
“I’m sorry,” Kes said, “Just. Kriff.”  
“I’ve been saying that to myself plenty,” Poe said.   
“You want to eat?” Kes said, “We should eat.”

***

“How did you know you loved mom?” Poe said, “I mean, how did you know that you wanted to spend the rest of your life with her?”   
They’re sitting on the porch after putting the animals away for the night. The stars seem particularly bright, here, but it is dark enough to ask the question without feeling embarrassed.   
“Whenever she was gone, she was all I could think about,” Kes said, “I couldn’t imagine what life would be like without her, or even remember what it was like before her.”   
Poe doesn’t make a sound, lifts his hot chocolate to his lips (and that makes him think about Hux, too).   
“Is that how you feel about him?”  
“Yeah,” Poe said, “I guess it is.”  
“I just want you to be happy,” Kes said, “That’s the most important thing in the galaxy to me.”   
Poe opens his mouth to say something, but he’s interrupted by an incessant trilling of his comms device.   
He’s confused, at first, because he’s asked for a couple of days of no-contact, for quiet.   
So there is not many people it could be.   
His mind goes straight to Hux.   
“Sorry,” he says, to his Dad as he jumps and rushes into the house for privacy.   
“Poe Dameron?” It’s an unfamiliar voice, “We’ve got something you want.” 

**

  
He’d told Hux about the mermaid book his parents had read to him, but he didn’t mention the other folk tales. Powerful old women turning naughty young boys into stone (with hindsight, he thinks that one might have been a veiled threat), and one of a young woman who has to rescue her princess from a tower.   
That had been one of Poe’s favourites, it was written like a long poem and sometimes, when Poe couldn’t sleep, he’d chant it to himself.   
He can barely remember it now, but he can’t help thinking of it, though he doesn’t think Hux would find the comparison particularly flattering. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's very short, but it's a double post!   
> Thank you for reading!


	21. Fold

Brendol Hux had believed that all good officers should be able to withstand torture.   
And so he had made a bit of a game of it.   
It usually happened after a couple of years of training. At the beginning of the year, each of his ‘students’ would be given an envelope, containing a unique phrase that they were supposed to memorise, and never tell anyone what it said. It was usually nonsense. Words strung together, like the dead sun rises after the birds, or, red flowers bloom at night.   
For a long time, Armitage had tried to find meaning in his sentence. Tried to find a point.   
You didn’t know when it was going to happen. Black-bagging.   
You might be picked up in bed, or in the showers, or during a military strategy lecture. They’d shove a bag over your head and take you to another location. Sometimes it was a brisk walk, sometimes they’d shove you in a shuttle.   
And then you would be tortured, for the ‘information’ on the card. The torture would last however long Brendol thought it should last. A few days, usually. When he was satisfied that you would never give in, you would be free.   
If you gave up the information, the torture would be stopped. And then a few weeks later, you’d be handed a new envelope, a new phrase, and the waiting would begin again. And so would the torture.   
It was standard stuff: beatings and sleep deprivation and starvation, fingernails being pulled out.   
They changed it up. Familiarity breeds laziness.   
The only thing every trainee would go through in common was the removal of one tooth. They only did this during the first session. Once you passed, you would be rewarded with a false tooth containing a promise: a suicide capsule.   
It had taken Armitage five times to pass. He’d given up information, time and time again. He’d once lasted six days before breaking.   
The fifth time was nine days.   
It had done nothing then but fuel Armitage’s hatred of his father. It wasn’t a part of training anymore. Now, though, Armitage thinks there might have been something to it after all, because he tells the criminals nothing.  
But he really would kill for a suicide capsule.

***

It was his own fault. He was stupid, lazy, and angry at Dameron. He shouldn’t have lost his temper. Should have apologised, lied if he had to, then fucking begged Dameron to come and collect him.   
Turn himself into the Resistance, like the useless damn coward he had always been.   
He didn’t want to.  
No, he did, that’s what made it so disgusting.   
He still thought he could make it back to the Order. That’s what he fantasised about, trying to beat the withdrawal symptoms. He’d never been so tired.   
He’d have to do something about the Supreme Leader. What?   
There was no way to beat a force user without a force user. Though Snoke doubted him a lot, thought he was rigid and rabid all it once. Useful so far as he could be controlled.   
If he’d not listened to Ren, he could’ve gotten the jump on Snoke (delusional, stupid). Snoke had frequently accused him of hiding things, or at least trying to. Maybe if he really tried, he could convince Snoke that he was still toothless.   
And then he could blow up Snoke’s entire planet. Twice, just to be sure.   
No, he didn’t have Starkiller anymore because he was stupid. And even if it worked, he’d still need to be rid of Ren, who’d never found him useful, and never understood why Snoke did.   
There did have to be something there. Ren wouldn’t have given him the chance at escape if he didn’t think there was something he’d gain from Hux disappearing.   
He didn’t have the First Order and he didn’t have Dameron and he didn’t have anything except from a grubby hotel room, and he would have to find someone to steal from again soon but he couldn’t face the harsh, natural light of the sun.   
But he had to eat, too. It had been a couple of days, and he wasn’t going to die from hunger in a hotel room, it was too embarrassing.   
He hates food. Hates chewing, hates the smell, hates the mess, all the diseases and dangers hiding in every bite.   
Hates hunger, too. Gnawing, distracting. He’d always preferred nutrition bars and liquids. Efficient. They tasted terrible.   
So he gets out of bed, dresses quickly, sloppily, because standing up gives him a headache.   
He doesn’t make it to a store.   
He’s so fucking stupid that he hadn’t noticed the alien with blue skin and three eyes (he knows the name of the species, but he doesn’t, he can’t think - his body had always been treacherous it was only a matter of time his brain would join in). The alien had followed him before, he knows with hindsight.   
It’s his own fault, because when he turns down an alleyway, someone says,   
“General Hux?”  
And he turns and looks, and then he’s hit with something - not a blaster, it’s not like being shot or stunned. He slowly fades to nothing.   
It’s almost nice.

***

His kidnappers are bad at kidnapping. Most probably, petty criminals. Minor lackeys of a bigger gang.   
There are five of them. No. One of them is a kid, and they treat him nearly as badly as they treat Hux. The kid, Di-se-On, looks like the result of an unholy union between a Gungan, a human and an Ortolan.   
There are two that are near identical humanoids, the three-eyed blue and finally, a human.   
The human is the leader, or maybe the blue. The human is the primary interrogator.  
Hux comes to in what looks like a refresher stripped to it’s tiles. There’s nothing but a bare mattress. His coat is gone, and so are his boots.   
The boots might be worth some credits, so he can’t begrudge them that. The coat is worth nothing without proof of who it came from.   
Unless they plan on stripping it from it’s insignia and then selling it. But that would leave a mark. It would look hideous.   
He laughs, because it’s a stupid thing to think.  
“You’re awake,” said the blue, “Good.”  
“I can’t say I had a pleasant sleep,” Hux said, or, he would have, if his tongue didn’t feel strangely bloated in his mouth.   
The blue opens the cell door, chuckling. Laughing at him.  
“Your mouth will wake up in a few minutes,” the blue said, “I know how much you like to make speeches, General.”  
Blue picks him up roughly by the arm and pushes him out of the cell, along the corridor.   
“Thursday will be having a little chat with you today,” the Blue said, sitting him down in a chair at a table and then taking out some binders, “Di-se-On!”   
The small creature appeared, craning its neck around the door nervously.   
“Get Thursday.”

The interrogation is predicable, once it gets started.  
Thursday does not have any real questions, because he doesn’t have any real affiliations. He doesn’t imagine what the Resistance might want to know, or the Republic, or even the First Order. And he doesn’t guess that Hux is avoiding the Order.  
Hux’s mouth recovers from its strange pseudo-paralysis but he keeps it closed to anything useful.  
“What were you doing on my planet, Starkiller?”   
“Yours?”   
“Yeah, mine,” Thursday said, “I’ve had enough of you First-Order-shitheads. Especially you.”  
“If you’re so tired of me, why don’t you let me go?”  
Thursday laughs.   
“Funny, yeah?” He said, and he reaches across to take Hux by the head and hit his head into the table.

It’s not that bad, at first. Interrogations at inconvenient times. They feed him scraps, don’t let him sleep properly. He has to ask permission every time he needs a piss and they won’t let him shower.  
They tell him people think he’s dead, but they know they can get a good price for him. The Republic wants Starkiller. The Resistance (he tries not to react to that, his best option at survival) wants him. They mention that the First Order wants him, too, that they might consider handing him over to them, if they’re the highest bidder.   
Di-se-On gets hit around a lot. The kid brings Hux his food, and notices he’s not eating the disgusting, rotting scraps and once shoves a bar of chocolate through the food hatch.   
Hux is reluctant to be grateful towards a kidnapper, even if Di-se-On doesn’t seem to exactly be an enthusiastic participator, but he thanks the kid. He still doesn’t like chocolate, but he thinks of Dameron’s eyes and Dameron’s drinks and the taste of Dameron’s mouth. 

One of the green identical things comes in, and Hux stands, because he expects he is being taken for interrogation again.   
“Get on your knees, Starkiller,” it said, “And I’ll make it better for you.”  
So of course, Hux has to kill him. 

That makes his precarious and unpleasant situation worse, because the second of the pale-green brothers loses his temper.  
Thursday and Blue let the beating go on for a bit, even join in, but after a while they start to panic.   
“He’s not worth shit, dead,” Thursday said, wrestling with the surviving creature.   
They ramp it up, after that. But it’s still not very creative, still nothing he’s not been through before.   
They take a couple of toe-nails, re-open old wounds.   
They don’t let him set the shoulder that green had dislocated.   
Hux hears them spit in his water, and so he stops drinking that, apart from a few stolen sips from the sink in the refresher.   
“I know something you don’t know,” Hux said, when he’s half-delirious with thirst, and he tells them that Poe Dameron really has it in for him.  
That night he overhears them discussing contacting Dameron.  
The next night, the rest of their plan makes itself clear: they’re selling Hux off, but they’re looking selling Dameron, too. 

***

  
It is almost flattering to hear that there is more than one group willing to buy Hux, and he almost doesn’t care that it is almost certainly to see who will get the pleasure of executing Starkiller. Dameron is wanted by the First Order, Dameron is on his way to pick Hux up.   
Hux is dying.   
He hasn’t had a drink in days, hasn’t taken the heart medicine in weeks, and it almost is a waiting game. His lips are chapped. His mouth is dry, pulse higher and even more erratic than usual.   
He has developed a tremor in his hands.   
It would be funny, if he were to die before Dameron got here.   
But no, he wouldn’t allow himself to die until he had made sure that he wasn’t going to get sold.   
He picks at the skin on his palms and waits, repeating to himself, don’t die don’t die don’t die don’t die, don’t die don’t die don’t die don’t die.  
“I’m here to pick up a General Hugs.”   
Hux attempts to wet his mouth.   
“I’m sorry to inform you,” Hux said, “He’s otherwise engaged.”  
“Well damn,” Dameron said, “Can you give him a message?”   
“I can take one,” said Hux, “But sadly I can’t guarantee he’ll get it.”   
“Well, his ride is here,” Dameron said, “And as nice as this place looks…”  
“You don’t like the decor?”   
“Shabby chic,” Dameron said, “Didn’t think that was your style. No chrome at all.”   
Hux wants to stand up, but he is afraid he will fall.   
Bad: Dameron would make fun of him. Worse: Dameron would pity him.   
“I don’t like talking to you through a door,” Dameron says.  
“Yes, it must be very inconvenient for you.”  
“You’re going to have to step back,” Dameron said, “I’ll need to cuff you. Just until we’re alone.”  
“Dameron - ”  
“Hux.”  
So Hux stands, using the wall as shaky support.   
Dameron whistled as he came in, swinging the binders, irritatingly cavalier.  
Dameron reached for his arm.  
“Don’t,” Hux snapped.  
Poe stepped back, Hux turned to face him.   
“My shoulder is dislocated. Could you cuff me with my arms in front?”   
The suspicion Dameron regarded him with was only half-warranted.   
“I thought that was just your posture,” Dameron said, “You know, stick-up-your-ass.”   
“Please,” Hux said.   
Dameron nodded and cuffed his arms in place.   
“Sorry. Is that alright?”  
“Wonderful, thank you.”   
Dameron navigated him towards the door, and Hux was not sorry to leave the cell.   
The three living criminals, including Di-se-On had congregated in a room that was almost in as much disrepair as Hux’s cell had been.   
Di-se-on, almost a meter shorter than the nearest to his height, lurked behind them all, not looking at Dameron or Hux.   
He maybe looked up to Dameron, Hux considered. The Resistance Hero, whom he was about to betray.   
“So, we’ll be heading out,” Dameron said, handing over what Hux assumed was payment, “Thanks for keeping him in mostly one piece.”   
“Wait,” said the tallest, “You don’t want a drink first?”   
Hux rolled his eyes. It was such a weak attempt.   
How could he have been their captive for so long?   
“I don’t drink on the job,” Dameron said.   
Hux snorted. They all looked at him.   
“I didn’t realise you had such high standards,” Hux said, “These certainly don’t.”   
The medium-sized one, the one nearest to him, hit him across the face, moving closer to do so.   
Close enough for Hux to lean into it, to aim for the greenish flesh of the criminal’s neck and pull as hard as he could. An impressive fountain of blood spurted up the walls.   
Di-se-on’s scream was louder than the man’s cry of pain and louder than Dameron’s ‘No!’  
Hux took the blaster from the bleeding creature.   
“Move,” Hux said.   
Dameron stood his ground, feet firmly planted in front of Hux’s shot, back to the blaster that was being pulled behind him.   
“Move your damn head Dameron,” Hux said, and, mercifully, Dameron actually did what he was told - mostly in order to lunge for Hux himself, but it was enough to get the shot in.   
Di-se-on was shaking in the corner, behind a battered brown sofa.   
“Go,” Hux said to him, “Go on, scram.”   
Di-Ki-on scurried away.   
“What the hell?” Dameron said.  
Hux handed over the stolen blaster to him. Dameron took it as though it was about to explode.   
Hux nodded his head towards the dead creature on the floor.   
“Check his comms.”   
“Why?”   
“They were going to sell us both,” Hux said, “You to my side, of course, and me to a more…extremist sect of your own.”   
“You couldn’t have told me?”   
“You’d have left me to them.”   
“I wouldn’t,” Dameron said, “I just wouldn’t have killed them.”   
Aren’t you afraid that if you keep me I’ll suffocate you.   
Hux rose an eyebrow.   
Dameron was not a convincing liar. He steadied himself against the wall. The excitement had increased his already elevated heart rate, and the taste of the flesh he had spat out was still plaguing his tongue.   
He was thankful he had truly nothing to vomit.   
Dameron searched the pockets for a comms unit.  
He read it, nodding and frowning to himself before pocketing it.   
“Dislocated shoulder, huh?” Dameron said.   
“It is,” Hux said, “It just happened to be convenient.”   
“Right,” Dameron said, “And what about the little guy?”  
“Who?”   
“The guy you told to scram,” Dameron said, “Why not shoot him, too?”   
“He was just a youngling,” Hux said, “Would you get me my coat?”   
“What?”   
“It should be in that office. I’m not going anywhere, Dameron, I’m just cold. There will be a knife in the inside breast pocket, it has a false sewn bottom, so you’ll have to reach in.”  
Hux waited amongst the bodies, closing his eyes once more and trying to centre himself.   
Don’t die.   
Dameron returned after a few minutes, pocketing Hux’s knife.   
“I looked for your boots,” he said, “But I couldn’t find them.”   
Dameron hesitated, holding Hux’s coat up in the air, like he was helping a ghost into it.   
Then he draped it over his own shoulder and approached Hux. Almost automatically, he stepped backwards in response.   
“I’m not - ” Dameron said, “I’m just un-cuffing you.”  
Hux nodded.   
“I would have told you,” Hux said, “I just…”  
Hux’s head swims again and he loses track of himself for a couple of seconds.   
Dameron’s hand is firm on his arm.  
“Hugs?” Dameron said, “Are you alright?”  
“I’m just tired, Poe,” he says, still swimming. Dameron gets rid of the binders and places the coat around Hux, like he’s an invalid.   
“How’d you end up with these guys?” Dameron says, and Hux shrugs and then winces, “Alright lets get you in the shuttle.”  
Dameron’s craft was a few hundred meters away, and, with Dameron’s back to him, Hux let himself limp behind him. It was an old transport craft that didn’t suit Dameron at all.   
“They said you killed one of theirs last week,” Dameron said, not turning around, “Guy called Jalow.”   
“Your point being?”   
“Why?”   
“Why does it matter?”  
“I’m trying to understand what happened here, Hux.”  
“They’re low class criminals, Dameron,” Hux said, “The thing. Jalow. He came into my cell wanting to get his cock sucked by Starkiller and I wouldn’t allow it. Or would you prefer I had done it?”  
“No,” Poe says, “I - of course not. Are you okay? I mean, you’re not, but they didn’t - do anything else.”  
“No,” Hux said, “Nothing quite like that. I’ll live.”  
He laughs, at the last part, and Dameron’s eyes widen.  
“Why’d they take your socks?” Dameron said, “I’m mean, the boots, I guess could fetch up a few credits, but socks - ?”   
“You’d have to ask them that,” Hux said, “They didn’t give them back after they.…”   
“I would ask them, if you hadn’t killed them.”   
“You can’t honestly be upset about it.”   
“I am.”   
“Why?”   
“Why? Why am I upset that you’ve just killed four people?”   
“Three,” said Hux, “I’ve just killed three criminals, and one a week ago.”   
“When is beside the point,” Dameron said, “It wasn’t necessary.”   
“He was ready to stun you,” Hux said, “It was the two of us or the three of them.”   
“You should have stunned them,” Dameron said, “Not rip their throats like an animal.”   
“It was only one throat.”   
“Stop being so pedantic!”   
“I wouldn’t need to be pedantic if you were accurate,” Hux said.   
Dameron climbed into the pilots seat, pinched the bridge of his nose.   
“We’re not going to tell anyone what happened,” Dameron said, “At least not until I know exactly what is going to happen with you. Understand?”   
“Understood,” Hux said.   
He settled in his seat, and then searched his pockets. Dameron stopped flicking at buttons and started to watch him instead.  
“Don’t tell me you didn’t search the rest of my coat,”  
“No. I thought you were being honest with me.”   
“You shouldn’t assume such things,” Hux said, pulling out his gloves.  
“But you don’t have anything else?”   
“No,”   
“How do I know that?”   
“You’re going to have to assume I’m being honest.”   
Dameron rifled around, pulling out a canteen of water. It took everything within Hux to not snatch it out his hands. Dameron drank.   
Hux would not ask for water.   
Dameron held out the canteen to him.   
“You look like you could use it,” He said, “When was the last time you ate?”   
“Unimportant,” said Hux, accepting the drink.   
He drank enough to wet his lips, recalling vaguely from training years ago that rapid rehydration could be as much as a killer as dehydration itself.   
“Thank you,” Hux said.   
Dameron took another sip.   
“You look really terrible,” Dameron said, “Not just all the blood, you look sick. You should keep the beard though, I like it.”   
“I can’t stand it,” Hux said, “Are we leaving?”   
“You’re no conversationalist, Hugs.”   
“So I’ve been told,” Hux said, he sank lower in his seat, closing his eyes.   
He felt Dameron’s eyes on him for a few more seconds before the comforting whir machinery and hum of electricity scattered about his ears.

  
***

Hux must have slept a long time, though it felt he hadn’t at all.   
He jolted awake, heart rate once again through the roof, and arm, useless with pain, flailed miserably towards the figure beside him.   
It barely grazed him, of course, but Dameron startled, too.   
“G’Morning, Hugs,” Dameron said, sleepily, “I was about to check if you were dead.”   
“Very much alive,” Hux said, “Haven’t I asked you not to call me that?”   
“Not lately,” Dameron said, “Water?”  
“Yes,” Hux said, “Where are we?”   
“Don’t know exactly,” Dameron said, “I felt like a nap and parked up on the first solid surface I saw.”   
Hux paused before the canteen could reach his lips.  
“I’m joking, Hugs,” Dameron said, “Its safe, I’ve been here before.”   
Hux drank the water, steadying himself so as not to appear too thirsty, too greedy, too desperate.   
“I wouldn’t put it past you, Dameron.”   
Hux shifted again the seat. He wasn’t tired enough to ignore the pain in his shoulder any longer.   
Dameron had his eyes closed, long, dark eyelashes fluttering against his cheeks.   
“Dameron. Poe.”  
“Mm?”  
“I need you to push my shoulder back in place,” said Hux.   
I need you, such a terrible, terrible thing to say.  
Dameron opened his eyes and blinked rapidly at Hux.   
“What?”   
“I need you to push my shoulder back in place,” said Hux, “Please.”  
“I know what you said, but - I don’t know if I can do it.”   
“I’ll tell you how,” said Hux, “It’s been dislocated before. Usually I would do it myself but I don’t quite have the strength.”   
“How often do you dislocate your shoulder?”   
“Often enough that I know how to do push in,” said Hux, “Never mind.”   
“I’ll do it,” said Dameron, “How?”   
“I will have to lie down,” said Hux, “Where?”   
“You opposed to the floor?”   
Hux hesitated, usually, the answer would be a resounding yes.   
“No,” said Hux, “It would be easier with some elevation, however.”   
“Sorry I don’t have a sick bed,” Dameron said.   
He stood up. Hux followed him to the middle of the craft, and lay down on the floor with his left arm out.   
“You have to pull it slowly,” Hux said, “Harder than that, Dameron.”   
Dameron withdrew his hands.   
“I don’t want to hurt you - ”  
“Don’t be so ridiculous,” Hux said, “It hurts more now.”   
Dameron grabbed his arm again and started to pull. Hux gritted his teeth until he heard the familiar clunk of the bone slipping back into space.   
The relief was instantaneous.   
“Good,” Hux said, sitting up, “Thank you.”   
“Any time,” Dameron said.  
He swaggered back to his seat, Hux following behind, massaging at his shoulder.   
“Need anything else?” Dameron said.   
“Do you have a cold-pack?”   
“No, sorry,” Dameron said, “The med-pack here is lacking.”   
Hux closed his eyes again.   
He doubted that there was any point in asking for painkillers. Even if Dameron had some, he doubted they’d be strong enough to mitigate his pain.  
“You mind if I get an hour before we head out again?” Dameron said.   
“Not at all,” Hux lied.   
“You’re not going to kill me while I sleep, are you?”   
“I doubt it,” Hux said, “It would seem rather pointless at this point.”   
“That’s comforting.”   
“Just shut up and go to sleep,”

***

“So, uh,” Poe says, when they’re nearing what Hux assumes will be the Resistance base, “This situation is a little complicated.”  
“You don’t have to tell me that, Dameron.”  
“What I mean is,” Dameron said, making an unpleasant smacking sound with his lips, “You are not going to be here. Officially.”  
“Officially?”  
“It’s need to know. Me. Leia. A doctor, you’ll need to be checked over, obviously, and uh. Finn.”   
“The stormtrooper?”   
Poe nodded but frowned.   
“We’re worried that if people know you’re here…”  
“They’ll want to kill me,” Hux said, “I understand.”   
“We don’t want the Republic to know either. I mean, the Resistance doesn’t deal in death penalties. But…”  
“I’m aware of the usual sentence for mass murder.”  
Poe sits back in his chair, rubs his hand across his face, and sighs.   
“So, are you ready?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, are you?
> 
> SO, First of all I want to say a big thank you for everyone who has commented, left kudos and read this fic. It's been really surprising to me how many people seemed to have liked it and stuck with it, I super appreciate it, as someone who has terrible anxiety even about posting anonymously on the internet.   
> Secondly I'd like to say that there is a sequel! Which will be coming out in January, possibly mid-month as though the first couple chapters of it have been written, I have end-of-semester exams.   
> Thirdly, fun fact, this is the first chapter that was written of this fic! It was very different, because originally this was a TROS-carry-on/fix-it. Obviously things got out of hand.
> 
> Thank you for reading!


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